From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-09-11T07:55:54+09:00
Subject: Re: Larry Wall's comments on Ruby

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "nico" <n1k0@rogers.com>


> On September 10, 2002 04:38 am, Gavin Sinclair wrote:
> 
> > I'm not convinced that it's unnatural.  We don't know the types of a and
> > b, and for some objects a and b, a + b != b + a.
> >
> > I'm interested what you think the alternative is, or an argument against
> > the above, and how you would like to see a + b defined in Ruby.
> >
> > Gavin
> 
> I find that highly unnatural because we've been learning since grade school 
> that a + b = b + a.
> 
> If the objects don't satisfy that property they should be using a different 
> symbol.
> 

In addition to the other useful counterexamples, I'll point out that

  Time + Integer  !=  Integer + Time

Gavin