> 'Conversion' implies using the resulting String in some further > computation. 'Printing' usually implies displaying something to the > user (and nothing more), or serialising to a file/network.
What kinds of computation are you thinking of regarding a string? I think I understand what you're saying, I'm just trying to make it a bit more concrete in my mind. The requirements of displaying something to the user and serialising to a file/network are quite different, or not? I'm not trying to be disagreeable. I think the systems I've seen have not used these API's consistently. Especially if you see things like #displayString being replaced by #asString. What do we do now?
