From: "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@...>
Date: 2008-05-16T13:55:02+09:00
Subject: A Couple of Questions Regarding Ruby Style

While working on my rational class I came up with a couple of questions 
regarding the accepted way to do things.  I looked up a couple of Style 
guides on the net but they seemed to cover only the formatting of code 
and not what I was looking for.
The first is when casting is it preferred to use Integer(x) or x.to_i? 
Being from a C background the first is more obvious to me as it states 
that I am converting x to an Integer.  The second has its place when 
chaining several changes to a variable but I can't see it as being clearer.
The second involves the initialization method for a class.  I am making 
it so that the .new method will accept Integers, Floats, Strings, and 
Rational numbers.  Should I be doing this, or should I require that all 
the converting be done before calling new?  If I allow any type of 
Numeric, or String representation, is it acceptable to have the method 
call other methods for some of the conversions?
I am learning a lot about Ruby in this project, and it seems that I am 
constantly finding new things to add to it, and would like to code it in 
the accepted style.