From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2007-01-04T08:06:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Little Things

On Thu, 4 Jan 2007 dblack@wobblini.net wrote:

> Hi --
>
> On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, James Edward Gray II wrote:
>
>> On Jan 3, 2007, at 4:27 PM, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
>> 
>>> (A non-destructive pop would just be array[-1] with an incomprehensible
>>> name.)
>> 
>> Array#last
>
> OK; it would just be Array#last with an incomprehensible name :-)
>
> What I was getting at was that there's no point having pop and pop!
> since a non-destructive method called "pop" makes no sense.

i never thought of this, but in cases like pop/delete the bang version could
be used to return self:

#
# ejects last element
#
#   hop = on.pop
#
   def pop
     ...
   end

#
# ejects last element and returns self, eg
#
#   a.pop!.size
#
   def pop!
     ignored = pop
     self
   end


the 'dangerous' bit here is that the value is thrown in the bit bucket.  not
that i disagree with you - i just happen to have this thought...

-a
-- 
if you find yourself slandering anybody, first imagine that your mouth is
filled with excrement.  it will break you of the habit quickly enough. - the
dalai lama