From: Tom Pollard <tomp@...>
Date: 2007-01-04T08:12:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Little Things


On Jan 3, 2007, at 5:17 PM, Robert Dober wrote:
> On 1/3/07, dblack@wobblini.net <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, Robert Dober wrote:
>>
>> > (2) OT but still interesting I feel it might be a good  
>> convention that
>> any
>> > method changing the object should have a ! suffix, would make
>> >    programs much more readable, don't you think?
>>
>> No.  I would not want to see pop turned into pop! or << turned into
>> <<! and so forth.
>
> You are right especially for operators <<!, looks terrible but  
> would be
> necessary if one wanted to follow the rationale.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." (Emerson).
Rigid consistency to convention doesn't magically produce a more  
readable API.  I kind of like Matz's interpretation of '!' as meaning  
'dangerous', rather than 'mutating'.

TomP