From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2000-02-16T14:36:12+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:01432] Re: Say hi (bis)

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:01381] Re: Say hi (bis)"
    on 00/02/15, pixel_@mandrakesoft.com <pixel_@mandrakesoft.com> writes:

|> It is for performance and unambiguity reason.
|
|i still find it a moot point:
|- either 0 || 4 should return true (C behaviour)
|- either 0 || 4 should return 4 (python and perl behaviour)
|- either 0 || 4 should raise "undefined method `||' for 0''
|(by the way can you redefine `||' ?) (ML family behaviour)
|
|tis the first time i see 0 || 4 returning 0, kinda weird.

I think it's the matter of how far we go to determine true/false.
i.e.

 only #f is false, everything else is true(Scheme)
 false and nil are false, everything else is true(Ruby)
 false, nil and 0 are false, everything else is true
    ....
 false,0,"",undef are false, everything else is true(Perl)
 everything where len(n) == 0 is false, everything else is true(Python)

I feel Perl and Python went too far.  Maybe we can add fixnum 0 to be
false, just for an idea.

							matz.