Manuel Fahndrich wrote:
> 
> skaller wrote:
> 
>         [...]
> 
>         > Like I've been saying, with option you can turn it off, with
> Obj.magic, the implementor ought to be damned sure he's doing things right.  
> But with these special "uninitialized value" sorts of things, people like
> me who've gotten used to good type systems keep looking over their
> shoulders because they're afraid it might turn around and bite
> them in the butt.
> 
>>                 How is this different from Obj.magic? Can't that bite you
>>         in the ass too?
> 
>>> The difference is that in the first case of uninitialized values, they can
>>> crop up anywhere in your program, since they get propagated. Using Obj.magic
>>> within a special module such as resizable arrays confines the danger to that
>>> module. The programmer can make sure (through extensive code reviews of a
>>> finite piece of code) that outside the module, things cannot go awry.

	No. It is the other way around. Obj.magic values can get
propagated, and so cause a problem. The special initial can NOT
be propagated. Any attempt to copy such a value raises an exception.
Ensuing this does not happen is also a matter of hiding within
a modular abstraction, but at least an exception will help
detect such localised errors.

-- 
John Skaller, mailto:skaller@maxtal.com.au
1/10 Toxteth Rd Glebe NSW 2037 Australia
homepage: http://www.maxtal.com.au/~skaller
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