From: Ben Giddings <ben@...>
Date: 2003-08-05T13:58:16+09:00
Subject: Re: What's New and Shiny in Ruby 1.8.0?

On Monday, August 4, 2003, at 11:33  PM, why the lucky stiff wrote:
> Since there were a number of requests around for a more detailed
> explanation of 1.8.0 changes, I figured I'd start into my favorites and
> cover as many as I can.

Thanks for doing that.  I like that you've not only mentioned the 
changes but also given some background on why they're interesting and 
how they might be used.

Duck typing is an interesting idea -- but I think to be used well it 
will require more careful planning.  I think the example of testing for 
the method "read" is a good example.  I can imagine a large number of 
classes that would have a "read" method, but wouldn't return what's 
expected from an IO type read.

Looking at the page, I also have another question concerning 
Hash.merge.  It does essentially the same thing is the set-union for 
Arrays, right (Array#|)?  Would anybody besides me like to see Hash#| 
become an alias for Hash#merge?  To me it would be more obvious that 
{'key' => 'val'} | {'otherkey' => 'otherval'} returns a new hash and 
doesn't modify the original one.

Either way, the presence of this method is great for some HTTP stuff 
I'm doing where the only difference between a GET and a POST is that 
the POST requires a Content-type header.

Ben