From: "Brett H. Williams" <brett_williams@...>
Date: 2003-11-20T08:02:21+09:00
Subject: Re: ! usage

On Nov 20, Greg McIntyre wrote:
[snip]
> My suggestion is that one _should_ be able to do this:
> 
>   a = [1,2,3]
>   a.join!
> 
> with only Array#join defined.

What would this do?  Something like a = a.join ?

irb(main):001:0> a = [1,2,3]              # => [1, 2, 3]
irb(main):002:0> a.join!                  # => "123"
irb(main):003:0> a                        # => "123"

??

The above is doing a variable assignment with a method.  So the receiver is
a different object after the method is called.

This sounds undesirable.  I think of ! as either meaning danger OR operate
on an existing object, but not this.

I'm not sure this is even possible in Ruby, but I know it violates my POLS
:|

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Brett Williams                                 | (970) 288-0475        
Agilent Technologies                           | brett_williams@agilent.com
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