From: "lyle@..." <lyle@...>
Date: 2003-03-25T01:48:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie question: 9/5=1 ?


On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 10:59:22 -0500, Paul Brannan <pbrannan@atdesk.com> wrote :

> On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 10:01:31AM -0600, Lyle Johnson wrote:
> > Technically, it looks like you can call 'div', i.e. 9.div(5) will still 
> > return the standard integer division result. But this is completely 
> > non-obviously, and I only learned it after digging in the source code.
> 
> That works on Ruby 1.8 but not 1.6, which means I need to check the
> version and if I'm using Ruby 1.6, I need to define Integer#div myself
> using Integer#/.  IMO, this is silly.  I just hate it when people go
> around messing with Ruby's built-in classes with no good reason.  It's
> very difficult to code around that sort of code.

Yeah, I didn't even think to check the Ruby 1.6 sources. But the point is
moot; I completely agree with you that it's dangerous and "POLS-violating"
for modules to override the expected behavior for such fundamental concepts
as integer division.

> BTW, your reply was to me and not to the ML (I wasn't sure if that was
> intentional or not).

I replied to you and the newsgroup (comp.lang.ruby) at the same time. That
response may not have been mirrored over to the ML yet.