From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2006-10-07T08:46:13+09:00
Subject: Re: nil being empty

Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 10/6/06, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> That's the best example I have yet seen. Thanks for that Ara. Yet
>> there's still a problem. Your expecting a NoMethodError on nil, just
>> like I said. That's the thing, there's no other possible issue involved
>> here. Now I'll grant James' concern that it can make some bugs harder
>> to track down, but if that's our primary concern then I suggest we get
>> back to static typing.
> 
> 
> If I'm expecting to call #empty? I'm expecting to call it on something
> where it's meaningful.
> 
> What is 0.empty? 1.empty? -1.empty? If I allow nil.empty? why do I not
> want Fixnum#empty?
> 
> Nil isn't empty: nil just isn't. (As someone else said, one's spoon
> can't be empty if one doesn't have a spoon.)


All agreed.

Maybe the OP is feeling the need for a #nil_or_empty? as others
sometimes have.

I have felt that need, but I defined a null? that returned true
for nil or an empty container.

But that is just silly enough that I wouldn't release any code
that did that.


Hal