From: Nikolai Weibull <mailing-lists.ruby-talk@...>
Date: 2005-08-26T00:26:51+09:00
Subject: Re: idea: klass.from_s(str)

Eric Mahurin wrote:

> I was thinking how in seems a little asymmetric that many classes have
> #to_s method, but when you want to make one of those objects from a
> String, you have to clutter the String class with yet another #to_*
> method.  So the String class gets the burden of all those #to_*
> methods.  Instead, what if we would have the convention that creating
> an object from a string would be a class method (for the class of that
> object) instead of another String#to_* method.  So, instead of these:
> 
> String#to_i String#to_f
> String#to_sym
> String#to_<c> # where c is a abbreviation for the class
> 
> you'd have these:
> 
> Integer.from_s(str)
> Float.from_s(str)
> Symbol.from_s(str)
> klass.from_s(str)

How is

i = Integer.from_s("123")

better than

i = "123".to_i?

I prefer "send a message to the string to convert itself to something
else" over "send a message to a class to convert the argument to an
instance of that class",
        nikolai

> klass.from_inspect(str)

Kind of like read in Haskell or similar in Lisp?,
        nikolai

-- 
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}