From: gabriele renzi <rff_rff@...>
Date: 2004-12-02T06:12:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Typing Hints (Re: Optional static typing (or, What can Ruby 2.0 borrow from Boo?))

Austin Ziegler ha scritto:

> I don't like that because it then suggests that this should be
> possible:
> 
>   def foo(String s, Hash h)
>   end
> 
>   def foo(Integer s, Hash h)
>   end
> 
> This seems to regress from what I have come to know and love in
> Ruby. 

well, but is'nt multimethod dispatch something useful ?
I'm thinking of cases like:
class Foo
  def initialize(foo)
    case foo
     when Integer
      do stuff
     when String
      do other stuff
    end
  end
end

which is inextensible withouth changing the method source, while with 
MMD a specialized method can be provided from anyone.
Not that this needs a special syntax, as florian gross demonstrated some 
time ago :)

<snip>
> I don't see great value in type hinting -- and static typing is a
> big lose in Ruby, I think (type inferencing, on the other hand, is
> valuable). This might actually be something that can be done, and
> done without really harming the flexibility of Ruby.

static automagic interface inference yay!