# Ruby-dev summary 28027-28205

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-dev-summary-28027-28205/51745>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 6, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-dev-summary-28027-28205/51745 "2006-01-06T16:12:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Takaaki\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@Takaaki\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Takaaki_T)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-dev-summary-28027-28205/51745/1 "2006-01-06T16:12:17Z")

</div>

Here is a summary of ruby-dev mailing list.

[ruby-dev:28087] test(?-, file1, file2)

Akira T. asked what is correct behavior of test(?-, file1,  
file2).  
According to the online manual, this method checks whether file1 is a  
hard link to file2. But in fact it returns true when file1 is a  
symbolic  
link to file2. Nakada answered the current specification of the  
behavior  
should be kept since it is the same as that of “test -ef”.

[ruby-dev:28095] ruby 1.8.4 preview3  
[ruby-dev:28118] ruby 1.8.4 released

Matz announsed third preview version of ruby-1.8.4 in  
[ruby-dev:28095],  
ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.8/ruby-1.8.4-preview3.tar.gz  
1ba94874e1a253d3f1373533553080ae  
and then released ruby-1.8.4 a few days after.  
ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz  
bd8c2e593e1fa4b01fd98eaf016329bb

[ruby-dev:28109] Kernel#fail

Shyouhei U. proposed that Kernel#fail should be abolished.  
However, some people use it instead of raise. One of the reason  
is that they want to use a method name “raise” in their library.

[ruby-dev:26743] zsuper in a method with optional arg

Hiroshi N. found that behavior of “super” in ruby-1.8 is  
different from ruby-1.9 when “initialize” of a sub-class is  
called without optional parameters.

```
class Base
  def initialize(p1, p2 = 1)
    p [p1, p2]
  end
end
class Derived < Base
  def initialize(p1, p2 = 2)
    super
  end
end

```

The behavior of ruby-1.9 is close to that in Matz’s mind. However,  
he decided to fix the behavior of ruby-1.9 from the results of a  
discussion relating to [ruby-dev:23973].

[ruby-dev:28107] Process.exec

Minero A. suggested a new method “Process.exec” and posted a patch  
that implements “exec”, since Process has “fork” but doesn’t have  
“exec”.  
His patch has been merged.

[ruby-dev:28127] Intel C++ Compiler and HP aC++/ANSI on IA64

Akira T. posted a patch so that we can build ruby-1.9 using Intel  
C++  
Compiler with the option -O0 and can run it on IA64. He then wrote  
that  
he successfully built using HP aC++/ANSI C, but ‘make test-all’ didn’t  
work  
well. His patch was merged to ruby-1.9.