From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2006-11-17T20:21:10+09:00
Subject: Re: #returning and #tap

On 11/17/06, dblack@wobblini.net <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:
>
> I wonder if there's some name that embodies the fact that the object
> is going to come back from this method call.  The temporal ones (then,
> and_then, etc.) sound kind of self-evident ("Well, of course the next
> thing happens 'then'," my brain says).

Good point! I thought of "pipe" but even that doesn't say that it
modifies and returns self. Maybe "apply": string.split(/\s/).apply
{|i| i.pop}.whatever. Or even "modify".

>  Perhaps that was the reasoning
> behind "tap", though "tap" doesn't communicate much to me.  I'm not
> sure.

'tap' had a different intent, though - "tee off the object without
disturbing it" - even if it did the same thing in the end. So you
would typically take a.foo.bar.baz.quux... and drop in a tap,
a.foo.bar.tap {|i| puts "hi mom! this is #{i}"}.baz.quux, and take
care not to modify i destructively.

martin