From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2009-11-05T05:18:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby doesn't implement x++ for Fixnum's because ???

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 12:55 AM, RichardOnRails
<RichardDummyMailbox58407@uscomputergurus.com> wrote:
>
> BTW,  I'm not advocating x++ for Ruby.  I'm just trying to understand
> whether Ruby would literally change 1 to 2 as opposed to change a
> variable that contains 1 to subsequently contain 2.

Variables don't contain values, they refer to objects. That's the
fundamental difference. So if you say, for instance

a = "hello world"
a.upcase!
a #=> "HELLO WORLD"

the message "upcase!" is sent to the *object* "hello world", not the
variable a. To see this:

a = "hello world"
b = a
a.upcase!
a #=> "HELLO WORLD"
b #=> "HELLO WORLD"

Fixnums are immutable objects; you can't have any method that changes
their value. Hence no ++

martin