From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2003-01-28T09:39:16+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby-dev summary 19380-19436

TAKAHASHI Masayoshi <maki@rubycolor.org> wrote:
> * Is the method name 'quo' appropriate?

IMO, no. It reads very badly. I'd like a.over(b), though as Gavin said,
it's a bit colloquial.

> * Should we make Rational into standard?

My knee-jerk reaction is 'yes', but I'd like to hear some of the
'against's first. Also, I realise that I've never actually had reason to
use Rational.

> * Does int.quo(float) and rational.quo(float) return
>   Rational or Float?

Somewhat unorthodox, but I'd raise a "quo called with non-Rational"
exception, for the following reasons:

1. You really shouldn't cast a float to a rational, so it can't return
Rational.
2. If you're using quo rather than /, you probably have a good reason
for wanting the exactness of a Rational, so returning a Float is
pointless (no pun intended)
3. If you must convert float to rational, it should be explicit.

martin