From: "Aleksi Niemelä" <aleksi.niemela@...>
Date: 2000-10-25T22:13:55+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:5850] Re: Array#insert rehashed

Dave asks for:
> Could someone give me a 1 paragraph summary of why we need #insert?

I hope I don't let you down by writing a couple.

As an idiom Array#[pos,len]= works ok, but have couple of traps. First, it
autoflattens. Second it doesn't work intuitively with negative indices.

Even if Array#insert(pos, stuff) is defined to be same as
Array#[pos,0]=stuff (when []= doesn't have the previous problems) it
enhances code readibility:

  ary, other = [1,2,3], [4,5]
  ary[1,0] = other      # vs.
  ary.insert(1, other)

The effect is comparable to having a Array#push or Hash#fetch around. Both
are used much and enhance readibility, while could be coded otherwise.

	- Aleksi