From: Brian Candler <lists@...>
Date: 2012-08-16T02:46:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Print method

Eric Christopherson wrote in post #1072456:
> Languages like Java
> and Smalltalk define their text output methods on instances of IO
> streams; you can actually do that in Ruby too, using something like
> `$stdout.print foo`.

The OO conundrum again - function acting on two objects, which object 
class does the function belong in? It could be either.

If it were string.print and you wanted to send to a different stream, 
you would need to do something like

"hello".print($stdout)

which would work fine - Reia works this way <http://reia-lang.org/>

However I can think of one good reason for doing it the Ruby way round. 
print/puts expects a string, and it will call to_s automatically on the 
argument if it is not.

"foo.print" would fail on any object which doesn't have a print method - 
or there would have to be a print method in the top-level Object which 
does to_s.print. The latter would mix a public 'print' method into every 
object - and also risks infinite recursion if to_s doesn't actually 
return a string.

Having a public to_s method is more generally useful than a public print 
method, I think.

Regards,

Brian.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.