From: "Mauricio Fernández" <batsman.geo@...>
Date: 2002-10-24T00:04:16+09:00
Subject: Re: Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know (10/16/02)

On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 09:34:35PM +0900, Bulat Ziganshin wrote:
> Hello Mauricio,
> 
> Wednesday, October 23, 2002, 4:09:02 PM, you wrote:
> 
> >> def a(s)
> >>   s << '!'
> >>   s += '?'
> >>   return s
> >> end
> 
> MF> Would it be possible for Ruby to know whether an object is referenced by
> MF> several variables so += does '<<' or '... = ... + ...' when appropriate?
> 
> MF> Perhaps a bit in each String indicating whether it is shared or
> MF> not would make it... and GC issues could be ignored at first.
> 
> simple things must remain simple :)  instead of counting references
> and checking reference count at each '+=' ruby just creates new
> objects ang g.c. old and unreferenced
> 

Yeah, KISS applies always, but I may anyway try to implement this in the
future for the following reasons: 
 * the modification seems easy enough
 * I will possibly learn more about Ruby's internals in the process
 * if it's simple and makes Ruby faster, what can be wrong about it?

If I consider there's a limited resource (developer time/skills) and
something to make (a better Ruby implementation), it would of course
make sense for me to spend time on other implementation issues; but as
this is as much a "ruby internals exercise" as an actual usable thing,
it might end up improving my skills, and actually increasing the amount
of available resources (time x skill), and henceforth my output in the
midterm :-)!

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batsman dot geo at yahoo dot com

<igor> Hah! we have 2 Johnie Ingrams in the channel :)
<igor> Hey all btw :)