From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2005-09-22T21:51:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Integer Confusion

Uncle Roastie <roastie@rochester.rr.com> wrote:
> We have class Numeric, class Integer, class Fixnum, and class Bignum.
> It seems that literal numbers are converted to objects of
> Fixnum/Bignum. It also seems that Numeric/Integer are meant only for
> inheritance and not instantiation, yet they aren't abstract classes.   Is 
> there a
> write-up on all this, the basic intention, the details?  I find the
> topic just glossed over in the Pick-axe book.

Adding to James very comprehensible answer: Numeric and Integer are not 
abstract simply because there are no abstract classes in Ruby.  (Ok, there 
are modules but in this case it doesn't fit the inheritance chain well and 
no other class is likely to have to mixin numeric functionality.)

Regards

    robert