From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2001-10-10T10:31:17+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:22367] Re: blocks with min and max

matz@ruby-lang.org (Yukihiro Matsumoto) writes:

> |If a collection has specific collation rules, then keeping it with
> the |collection might be more encapsulated that spreading through
> the code |that uses the collection. That's all I was thinking.
> 
> Hmm, trade off.  How about using singleton method?
> 
>   def ary.<=>(a,b)
>     ...
>   end
> 
> This requires no enhancement.

I went down that route too, but isn't the comparison between the
_elements_, not the collection? So ary.max would need <=> defined for
each element in ary, which _seriously_ breaks encapsulation :)

I still like the idea of being able to specify the comparison method
as part of Enumerable or Comparable's interface.


Dave