From: Graham Wideman <checkforrealaddress@...>
Date: 2006-08-27T12:45:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Collections of structured-data objects: what approach?

Simen:

Thanks for your reply....

>>Now THAT's the set of examples I needed, and that should be in the major
>>Ruby docs.
>
> It is in the main Ruby docs. It's spread between the methods in use,
> because we couldn't anticipate every single combination of methods you
> might need to use and document them all in one place.

I was more commenting on the major ruby docs like pickaxe, Ruby for Rails, 
FAQs and so on. While some mention collections, this mostly just introduces 
basic features of hashes and arrays. None of the discussion that I've run 
across so far actually puts it all together into a comprehensive discussion 
of how the collections functionality familiar from other languages
(Java, C#, C++, OP, VB etc) can be acquired from array and hash plus 
whatever.

Yes, I agree that all the features and methods are documented in the 
language guide (eg: in pickaxe), but one needs to know which set of those 
features are to be assembled to create the familiar collection 
functionality, in the absence of a big flashing sign on an actual Collection 
class. (Especially bearing in mind that other languages/libraries go to some 
pains to distinguish the concepts of Array and Collection -- not to say that 
any particular other language is the most righteous).

Anyhow, for my part I'm a great deal further along than I was a couple of 
days ago, thanks in part to helpful responses here and elsewhere.

Thanks all!

Graham