From: Jim Freeze <jim@...>
Date: 2005-09-14T05:56:08+09:00
Subject: Re: yet another simple command-line option parser

In one way what you are suggesting is just a serialization
method, it just so happens that you are suggesting a string be used
to store the serialized data.

  obj.to_s.from_s == obj #=> true

Which is essentially a serialization of obj, and is OO. 
Right now, Marshal is functional

   Marshal.load(Mashal.dump(obj)) == obj #=> true

One could argue that we have this, but with YAML.
  YAML.load(obj.to_yaml) == obj #=> true

So, why don't we add a #from_yaml or #yaml_load to every
object? I don't think I want this done automatically, but it
would be nice to have it available so I can extend a class or
object as needed.

I think that every time we visit this subject, it goes back to
similar arguments as to why every object doesn't have puts,
such as  "fred".puts. Matz has made statements on this
which I agree with. Personally I think that puts("fred") is more natural.

But, I'm warming up to #from_s more and more, but still not sure yet.

On 9/13/05, Eric Mahurin <eric_mahurin@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From my perspective, the only reason for the distinction
> between Fixnum and Bignum is the efficiency (runtime and
> memory) of Fixnum - a very good benefit.  Otherwise, I think
> you should consider them the same.  Many of the methods in

Agreed

-- 
Jim Freeze