On Fri, 13 Jul 2001, Aleksei Guzev wrote:

> Adiscussion on C-style method overloading had taken place at the list
> already.

Pre- and post-conditions are not only for type checks, of course.

> Preconditions and postconditions could be checked "manually" when
> needed.

It won't always happen when perhaps it should:

HF> Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 00:44:29 +0900
HF> From: hfulton / pop-server.austin.rr.com
    [...]
HF> Subject: [ruby-talk:17732] Re: Array#sort! returns nil when array empty
    [...]
HF> And I personally never use this feature -- i.e., I never check
HF> to see whether the receiver was really modified. I just assume
HF> that my postcondition holds. For example, if I use gsub! to

which is natural -- and let him who has never "programmed by
coincidence" throw the first...exception? :-)

> I think a language has "critical mass". When reached, the language
> becomes another language. Like C and C++.
> You see C++ having some disatvantages due to compatibility with C. 
> 

Agreed.

	Hugh