From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2001-10-10T03:18:27+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:22329] Re: blocks with min and max

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:22325] blocks with min and max"
    on 01/10/10, Mark Slagell <ms@iastate.edu> writes:

|I don't know if this has been raised before, but I'd like to be able to
|supply a simpler block to min and max, taking one argument instead of
|two. Currently if objects of a class have some attribute, then finding
|the object with the smallest such attribute means doing something like
|this:
|
|  largest = collection.max {|obj1, obj2| obj1.attrib <=> obj2.attrib}
|
|... but this is characteristic of sorting logic, which does not
|presuppose an order. min and max have sufficient inherent meaning that
|it seems it should make sense to say
|
|  largest = collection.max {|obj| obj.attrib}
|
|Of course it's not a big deal except when the attribute expression gets
|a little lengthy, as I came across in a recent project.
|
|Any thoughts?

Enumerable#min and #max already work like the former, i.e.

  largest = collection.max {|obj1, obj2| obj1.attrib <=> obj2.attrib}

But I now think I should have chosen the latter.

  largest = collection.max {|obj| obj.attrib}

You are smarter than me.

							matz.