From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-10-07T03:47:07+09:00
Subject: Re: nil being empty

On Sat, 7 Oct 2006, Trans wrote:

> I see your point. And honestly, along those lines I think one could made a
> good argument that nil shouldn't be a real object at all, just a special
> value. But as things stand it is an object and there is some precedence for
> things like #empty? Namely,
>
>  nil.to_a
>  nil.to_s

yes.  to_s is kind essential for interpolation, and it even makes sense that
way.  to_a is less essential, except for the case of

   list = [*nil_obj]

or

   send msg, *nil_obj

so one can make good cases for those exceptions, but they are warts.

> The core issue is really the dangers of extensions. Let's work on
> mitigating those. If we can do that, then we woun't have to be so
> concerned with unconventional polymorphisms.

hard to argue with that.

cheers.

-a
-- 
in order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is
likely to hurt. -- wei wu wei