From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2012-03-30T03:21:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Why z = Complex(1,2) rather than z = Complex.new(1,2)?

On Mar 29, 2012, at 8:31 AM, Ori Ben-Dor wrote:
> But doesn't it break the convention?

I've never heard that there was a convention to avoid capitalizing method names, and I've been doing this a long time.  It just so happened that almost nobody bothered to.

Now, the convention is to provide a type conversion method that matches your class name for convenience.

> I mean, the convention is using a constructor, so what's special about Complex that justifies breaking it?

We decided to do something different because it was useful and looks nice.

> If the saving four characters argument is valid for Complex, why isn't valid for all classes in general?


Looking at `ri Kernel` I see the following type-conversion methods:

Array
BigDecimal
Complex
Float
Integer
JSON
Pathname
Rational
String
URI

So, if you have your own class, there's a precedent for adding your own type conversion method to Kernel.