From: Sean O'Dell <sean@...>
Date: 2004-06-07T02:21:44+09:00
Subject: Re: How to ducktype a Hash?

On Sunday 06 June 2004 02:52, Jeff Mitchell wrote:
> --- gabriele renzi <surrender_it@rc1.vip.ukl.yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > I believe Sean is correct in saying that what he defines as hash-like
> > behaviour is usage of [] with arbitrary objects. S
> >  uggesting fetch and store is ok, but for many things it does not work
> > (say, pstore does not seem to have #store and #lookup, yet it has
> > hash-like behaviour via [])
>
> This is the fault of PStore or of the lack of agreed-upon semantics
> for classes with hash-like behavior.  There should be a standard list
> which includes the definition of such behavior.  Here, I'll start the
> list now:

I don't think such casual contracts as saying "this method identifies an 
entire interface" is sufficient.  That's why we have objects that implement 
hash-like behavior, but which are impossible to tie together into a 
"hash-like type."  What we need is some positive identification.

	Sean O'Dell