From: Christopher Sawtell <csawtell@...>
Date: 2001-08-24T16:39:55+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:20256] Re: ++ Operator

On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 14:40, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Might I just say that the first thing which attracted me to Ruby is its 
`smallness' and logical simplicity. The more `features' you add to a computer 
system of any kind, the more possibilities you add for errors to creep in. 

The `++' operator is just a 30 year old hangover from C which is a dreadful 
language; just an assembler in disguise. Yes, I've had an epiphany and seen 
the error of my ways.

The autoincrement operator was put into the C language just because it could 
be mapped simply to a single instruction in PDP-11 assembler code. Thus it 
was possible to scan over a vector of values very quickly. This was important 
at the time when it took over a microsecond to execute a single machine 
instruction.Thirty years down the track we now have Code Red and `friends' 
wrecking havoc because it is so easy to abuse this auto increment operator.

It's not needed in Ruby simply because we have the superiour iterator 
constructs.

Please do not add it to Ruby.

-- 
Sincerely etc.,

 NAME       Christopher Sawtell
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 EMAIL      csawtell @ paradise . net . nz
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