From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@...>
Date: 2002-11-27T12:49:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know (11/24/02)

Dave Thomas <Dave@pragmaticprogrammer.com> wrote:

> However, Matz clearly believed that although Strings could be mutable,
> having integers whose value changes out from beneath you was a BAD
> IDEA. So, he made Fixnums immutable. Having done that, he was then
> free to make them value objects.

> So, Fixnums (and the rest) are immutable first, value objects
> second. The reason they're immutable is not an implementation
> decision, but a language design issue.

Hi Dave,

Thanks a lot for the comprehensive explanation.  How about Bignums
then? :)   (efficiency vs. consistency vs. implementation vs. ...)

Regards,

Bill