From: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>
Date: 2008-11-18T14:35:50+09:00
Subject: Re: [][100000000] = 1 whee!

Mike Austin wrote:
> Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
>> Mike Austin wrote:
>>> :) Just curious as to why Ruby automatically increases an array's 
>>> size when items are added.  I could see where it would be convenient, 
>>> but it also seems like bad practice.  One can, and should use a hash 
>>> as a sparse array.
>>
>> Because it's an array, not a sparse array.
>>
>> - Charlie
>>
> 
> True enough :)  But what about in terms of practicality?  Does it make 
> working with arrays that much simpler?  I use Ruby Arrays as stacks 
> mostly, where you don't run into setting values outside the current range.

No, it probably doesn't do a lot for arrays in general, but I suppose it 
does allow you to use an array as an N-wide list without immediately 
allocating the full backing store. That probably has some value.

- Charlie