> Although it appears attracrive, I don't think it's a good idea to tie
> File path and String too much.  Path operation should be tied to File,
> not String.
>
> 							matz.

I think I would be inclined to agree.  However, if some easy way of
joining directory names is not available, then you are going to see code
like this:

s = "#{foo}/bar/#{filename}.txt"

which, of course, is not portable (actually, the C standard never even
says that a particular implementation even has to have directories or a
separator character, but I doubt Ruby would ever run on such a system).

I see two possible solutions:

1) All functions that take a filename (including extensions) could be
required to handle '/' as a separator; systems that use another character
as a separator would translate the '/'s into the separator character
whenever they are called.

2) We could allow the alternative syntax, but only if the user requires
the appropriate file (extstring for "extended string" or something).  This
would allow the standard string library to have string-manipulation
functions only, but the extended string library to have a number of
convenience functions, such as String#/.

Paul