From: Randy Kramer <rhkramer@...>
Date: 2008-09-20T02:36:09+09:00
Subject: Re: why one array continues to grow after repeated call

On Thursday 18 September 2008 05:34 pm, Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:
> It accomplishes whatever it has been defined to accomplish. If you do 
[]= 
> there is no assigment happening unless there's an actual, real 
assigmnent
> in []='s method definition. It's not different from any other method 
in that 
> regard. Consider this:
> class Foo
>   def []=(x,y)
>     # Do nothing at all
>   end
> end
> Foo.new[1]=2 # No assigment whatsoever has taken place.

> HTH,

Sebastien,

Thanks, I think it does, but it still doesn't influence me to think of 
it as a method, or to think it's of any practical difference to an 
assignment.  

In C++, I could overload the = operator (I think) to do something 
different than assignment--if I did, I'd just confuse myself (at least 
in most circumstances).  In Ruby, somebody could make the []= method do 
something other than assignment, but that would just be confusing (in 
most circumstances), so I'd try to avoid it.

Randy Kramer
-- 
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video 
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.