From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2004-05-12T01:04:47+09:00
Subject: Proposal: Object#send(nil) -> self

A quick one.  I see some sense in Object#send accepting 'nil' as the
message.  You send no message, you get the plain object.  Does anyone
agree?

#send is clearly useful when you want to vary the message sent to an
object based on some condition.  Sometimes the default condition is to
send no message, but that can't be coded as elegantly.

For example:

  date_colour_msg =
    case Date.today - date
    when 0 then :red
    when 1 then :yellow
    when 2..5 then :green
    else
      nil   # Default: whatever the normal colour is.
    end

  date_str = date.to_s.send(date_colour_msg)

That example's not too contrived, is it?

Cheers,
Gavin