Re: Arithmetic on strings

[Miles Bader <miles@...>]

Rena <hyperhacker@gmail.com> writes:
>> Speaking as a Python developer, I agree with you. Things should
>> coerce *to* strings much more readily than they should coerce
>> *from* strings.
>
> +1, I've expressed a few times that functions expecting strings as
> input should call [__]tostring. It'd make life easier when dealing
> with objects that may or may not be strings but can be converted to
> them. The C API is where this bugs me most, as few libraries bother
> to do it themselves.

There's certainly a time and place for implicit to-string coercion in
various functions (not in the VM), but it's just silly to say that
_every_ function expecting a string should do this.  It's a judgement
call.

E.g., I agree that the format %s directive should call tostring on its
argument.  But I think (1) string.concat should not, (2) in general
functions which are "obvious" string-only operations, and would only
be used with non-strings in "weird" circumstances (e.g. some sort of
"set_title" function) should not, (3) more "primitive" functions
should tend towards less coercion, and (4) more "debuggy" functions
should tend towards more coercion.

Sorry if that's all a bit handwavy, but ... I expect many of you "know
what I mean" ... :]

-miles

-- 
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