From: Ryan Pavlik <rpav@...>
Date: 2003-08-19T02:01:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Question: immutable strings as design goal?

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 23:07:54 +0900
Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@soyabean.com.au> wrote:

> On Monday, August 18, 2003, 11:03:50 PM, Yukihiro wrote:
<snip> 
> > I rarely have such problems caused by mutable strings.  Besides, Ruby
> > is not a language to keep people away from horror.  You can write
> > ugly, scary, or dangerous programs in Ruby, if you want.  It's cost
> > for freedom.
> 
> I don't think his thoughts were on freedon vs restrictions.  It seemed
> that he just thinks strings, for whatever reason, *should* be
> immutable, like numbers.
<snip>

There are always performance issues to consider as well.  Constantly
creating new strings, especially when working with large ones, is a
major performance hit.

Numbers, symbols, booleans, etc don't have this problem.


-- 
Ryan Pavlik <rpav@users.sf.net>

"Why are we even *mentioning* semi-regular polyhedrons
 and real space?" - 8BT