From: Alexandru Popescu <the.mindstorm.mailinglist@...>
Date: 2006-06-27T03:04:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby and Java equality usage

Hmmm... for me it is not the name problem, but (hopefully nobody will
be agree because I keep repeating it) the fact that I really cannot
see a good example for having different implementations for == and
eql?. Once I see an example that makes sense, I will consider this
discussion closed (from my pov).

./alex
--
.w( the_mindstorm )p.
---
(http://themindstorms.blogspot.com)


On 6/26/06, Elliot Temple <curi@curi.us> wrote:
>
> On Jun 26, 2006, at 10:20 AM, Robert Klemme wrote:
>
> > 2006/6/26, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com>:
> >
> >> Personally I find this situation a bit odd.  I'd prefer a single
> >> > equivalence relation per class not two.
> >>
> >> Although I do not feel the same that seems a normal concern, as I
> >> pointed
> >> out to the OP.
> >> Honestly I think it depends on the programming culture we are
> >> coming from
> >> and when
> >> in our mind these are synonyms we are likely to get bitten by that
> >> kind of
> >> code.
> >
> > At the moment I'm not so sure whether culture is the background.  I
> > tend to think that there's a more fundamental issue: having a single
> > equivalence relation defined on instances of a class seems to make
> > things easier in several areas and I believe that it rather reduces
> > programming errors.
>
> Perhaps the issue is not so much having more than one, but having
> unhelpful names for them. We don't get confused by the variety of
> each-like methods available. And no one forgets the difference
> between times, upto, and downto, despite their similarities. If we
> had ==, same_place_in_memory, same_in_hash, and same_object_id (or
> whatever they are) people wouldn't get confused even with lots of them.
>
> -- Elliot Temple
> http://www.curi.us/blog/
>
>
>
>
>