On 18.07.2012, at 14:08, Frank Shearar wrote:

> Is there any particular reason why we don't have OrderedCollection >>
> #asOrderedCollection simply return self?
> 

> Right now (OrderedCollection with: 1) asOrderedCollection calls
> Collection >> #asOrderedCollection, which calls self as:
> OrderedCollection, which copies the collection.
> 
> This would also make OrderedCollection work a bit more like Array -
> Array >> #asArray simply returns self.
> 
> frank


Here's my guess:

The typical use cases for asOrderedCollection and asArray are different. If you send asOrderedCollection you probably want to add more objects to it. If you send asArray you normally won't modify the result.

So in a way, you could see asOrderedCollection as the normal "safe" case which ensures the original is unmodified, and the asArray behavior as an optimization.

- Bert -