From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@...>
Date: 2002-11-28T05:09:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know (11/24/02)

Dave Thomas <Dave@pragmaticprogrammer.com> wrote:
> My point was that you were giving the impression that the lack of ++
> for Fixnum was an implementation issue, and that alternative Ruby
> implementations might support it. Given that you produce a document
> aimed at newcomers, it was important to me that this misunderstanding
> was cleared up.

Well, as you already read, different people gave different reasons why
Fixnum#succ! is "impossible".  Without the concept of "immutability" being
formally introduced in the Ruby programming language, I can always give
the reason from the implementation point of view.  (In theory, I can make
Fixnum to be mutable; whether this is good or bad is a different 
story.  Guido thought that strings should be immutable; Matz thought
otherwise.  Python insists that hash keys be immutable objects; Ruby
allows any objects, with the consequence of the need for "rehash" in
certain situations.)

Without any formal treatment of immutability in Ruby, your previous post
is the only reference that I can use if in the future these questions are
asked again:

1) Why Fixnum is immutable (no Fixnum#succ!) while String is mutable
(String#.succ! is provided)?

2) How do I know which objects/classes are mutable and
immutable?  (Answer: just read all the methods, and if no "!" methods are
provided, it is immutable (?))

Regards,

Bill