From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2000-11-30T00:08:26+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:6634] Re: Question on sort!

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:6605] Re: Question on sort!"
    on 00/11/29, Dave Thomas <Dave@thomases.com> writes:

|>   (+) consistency.
|>   (-) returning nil somtimes breaks method chains.
|> 
|> The latter can be avoided if one follows the no-bang-method-chain
|> rule.  But I don't force you to agree with me (yet ;-).
|
|There's another way to view consistency: sort and sort! might be
|expected to return the same type of thing.

I don't call it consistency, but I have to admit that returning nil is
not much useful for several methods, namely sort! and reverse!.

Even though I still recommend the no-bang-chain rule, making sort! and
reverse! return the receiver always might be suitable for POLS.

							matz.