From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2005-11-09T22:42:13+09:00
Subject: Re: gsub and gsub! are inconsistent

David A. Black wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> On Wed, 9 Nov 2005, aurelianito wrote:
> 
>>>> what I can see is that there is no consensus on how the bang
>>>> methods should behave. May be, the always self returning bang
>>>> methods can be made available with an external library (there is
>>>> an trivial implementation for a bang method to return always self
>>>> :D). Is it already in the facets library? (right there with the
>>>> "message eating" nil).
>>> 
>>> You realize you may break the Ruby standard library by doing that?
>> 
>> 
>> Ups!
>> You are right.
>> 
>> I see three choices:
>> 1 - use the caller method to change the bang methods to behave
>> differently depending on the caller.
>> 2 - Use the rubycon tests to check how the standard library works
>> with the modified methods.
>> 3 - Leave it as is, and complain that I don't like it.
>> 
>> Option number one is really nasty.
>> Option number two is too much work.
> 
> And also *incredibly* fragile.  It's really not an option.
> 
>> Option number three seems to be the right choice.
> 
> 4. Investigate the various libraries on RAA that let you make
> temporary changes to core behavior.
> 5. Wait until Ruby 2.0 and the possibility of selector namespaces.
> 
> (You can of course combine either of this with complaining that you
> don't like it :-)

I'd like to add another option to the mix:

6. Don't complain and accept it the way it is.

This form of serenity can help a great deal in modern life.
:-)

Kind regards

    robert