From: MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam@...>
Date: 2002-09-29T06:29:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Where Is Method Call Precedence?


"Gavin Sinclair" <gsinclair@soyabean.com.au> wrote in message
news:045901c266f5$19ba5de0$845186cb@nosedog...
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "MikkelFJ" <mikkelfj-anti-spam@bigfoot.com>
>
>
> >
> > Tuples are very powerful datastructures in OCaml. They are not lists and
> > they are not arrays. They do, for example, make it much easier to handle
> > values in parser reductions. In Ruby you would use arrays or hashes, but
> > they have a much higher overhead. It would be nice with tuples in Ruby.
> >
> > Mikkel
> >
>
> Since Ruby is close to Python is *some* ways, and Python has tuples, I
cast the
> question: "What are tuples used for in Python?".  If someone answers that,
then
> I would get an idea of why I might like them in Ruby.

I was rethinking this. I'm not sure tuples would make any difference
compared to Rubys current arrays. It's more a question of ensuring that Ruby
internally handles small arrays efficiently:
[1,2,3] should be allocated in memory like <type=small-array, size=3, 1, 2,
3>. I.e. approximately the same overhead as floating values. Once a small
array is mutated with push etc. they could be converted into a  more generic
array datatype internally. I don't know how it currently works, but I think
the current array type is sufficient.

Mikkel