From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-07-15T14:10:44+09:00
Subject: Re: gets

On Sun, Jul 15, 2007 at 08:40:10AM +0900, Robert Klemme wrote:
> 
> With regard to premature optimization: I just made it a habit to use 
> chomp! in this case because I dislike creating an object that is 
> immediately thrown away when I can avoid it easily.  I'm not religious 
> here - it's just my personal rule of thumb.  As I said "inplace 
> modification" is nothing special, it's just the normal OO way of doing 
> things: object state changes.  Maybe people tend to forget that String 
> and Fixnum are objects just like any other object (ok Fixnum is 
> immutable and immediate but that's about it) and maybe that's the reason 
> why they feel that inplace modification is special or bad.  Dunno.  Chad 
> mentioned issues that can arise in complex code from inplace 
> modification and took that as his personal guideline to avoid it.  I 
> have a different personal guideline...

My personal guideline is basically to avoid in-place modification unless
I have specific reason to use it.  I find that an approach more
reminiscent of functional style lends itself to readability as well as
technical benefits for complex code, generally -- and when it doesn't,
that qualifies as "specific reason to use" in-place modification.

I guess there's a sort of fuzzy area in the middle where one tends to
lean one way or the other, based on personal preferences.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Amazon.com interview candidate: "When C++ is your hammer, everything starts
to look like your thumb."