From: "Meng, Ted" <Ted.Meng@...>
Date: 2003-02-21T01:25:42+09:00
Subject: nil.to_s

Hi,

I think it was discussed before but I do not remember a conclusion. 

Currently

nil.to_s  => ""
nil.to_i => 0

so on.


While in some scenario, this behavior comes handy, in many occasions, it
would result
in mysterious, unnoticed problem. for example

"#{[].shift}"    => ""

I'd argue that nil is an object representing a non-existence or
invalidity(false state).
So any message sent to it trying to get back concrete object (such as
to_s/to_i) should result in an exception.

Any comments? 

Thanks

-Ted