William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj / z.glue.umd.edu> writes: > Dave Thomas <Dave / pragmaticprogrammer.com> wrote: > > > However, Matz clearly believed that although Strings could be mutable, > > having integers whose value changes out from beneath you was a BAD > > IDEA. So, he made Fixnums immutable. Having done that, he was then > > free to make them value objects. > > > So, Fixnums (and the rest) are immutable first, value objects > > second. The reason they're immutable is not an implementation > > decision, but a language design issue. > > Hi Dave, > > Thanks a lot for the comprehensive explanation. How about Bignums > then? :) (efficiency vs. consistency vs. implementation vs. ...) Same goes for Bignums (they also are not mutable). I'm not sure what you're getting at. Dave