From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-08-13T23:11:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Background on why Ruby doesn't support ++

2009/8/13 Mark Thomas <mark@thomaszone.com>:
> Don't forget there's already
>
> x.next
>
> although there is not the orthogonal x.prev, which seems like the
> Principle of Most Surprise in effect :-). One way to rectify that is
> to open up Integer yourself:
>
> class Integer
>  def prev
>    self - 1
>  end
> end

There is also #succ and #pred.  But this is not the point: all of them
work by returning _a different object_.  You can easily verify by
looking at the result's #object_id.  Operators ++ and -- in C++ on the
other hand change the object (int, long etc.) itself.  The difference
is whether you will have aliasing or not.

Kind regards

robert

-- 
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/