From: Axel Etzold <AEtzold@...>
Date: 2007-10-15T04:52:00+09:00
Subject: Re: nil.to_i returning zero

> What does nil.to_i return? Zero. And I wonder why. How can nil be
> interpreted as a number. It's beyond me.
> 
> Anyone care to explain it to me?

Dear Gerardo,

without claiming any particular authority, to me, this definition
of what nil.to_i should return doesn't violate the principle of least
surprise so cherished by Ruby coders - if you have nil dollars money, that's 0 dollars -- think of the balance of somebody who hasn't
opened an account at "Ruby Deposit Bank" yet --
 but if you wanted nil.to_i to raise an exception,
because the "Ruby-Using Logicians Club" might be unhappy with such
elliptic thinking, I might find that reasonable also.
Maybe one has to distinguish between 0 and 1 on the one hand and 
false and true on the other, when coding Ruby, right from the start,
to avoid any confusion.

Best regards,

Axel 
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