From: Saynatkari <ruby-ml@...>
Date: 2005-04-04T13:32:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby rite (Ruby 2.0) vaporware or real?

Richard Cole wrote:
> Stephen Birch wrote:
> 
>> Matz's keynote topic at Rubyconf in which Ruby 2.0 was introduced was
>> in 2003.
>>
>> Does anyone know if any progress has been made on Ruby Rite or is it
>> vaporware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware)?
>>  
>>
> Apart from the entry on Ruby-Garden 
> (http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?Rite) there doesn't seem to be much 
> about on Google. I found the following project really interesting:
> 
>  http://www.atdot.net/yarv/#i-5-1
> 
> I dowloaded it and built it a couple of weeks ago, I got a small number 
> of build errors that were fairly easy to fix. When I tried it with 
> QtRuby though I think it fell over.
> 
> Yarv generates byte code and hints at being Rite complient because you 
> have to run "ruby -rite" to activate it, but I couldn't find anything 
> explicit on the web page about support for Rite.
> 
> Anyone else had success with Yarv yet?
> 
> My major gripe with Ruby is that there's no static typing. I'd really 
> like to be able to do something like:
> 
> interface ISubject
>  def notifyAll -- unit
>  def addObserver(a -- IObserver) -- unit
> end
> 
> interface IObserver
>  def subjectUpdate(subject -- ISubject)
>  end
> end
> 
> class Subject
>  def initialize
>    @observerList -- ISubject IEnum = Array.new()
>  end
>  ...
> end

You _can_ do that. You just do not have to specify the types
of the Subject and Observer.

> Why? because interfaces gives you a place define and explain protocols 
> of interaction. It also helps out the IDE, when you type @observerList 
> the IDE knows the type and can do name completion on it, hyperlink your 
> code etc.
> 
> Also interfaces inheritance is very different to reuse inheritance. It 
> is so much clearer intentwise for a framework if the interfaces are 
> explicit, rather than being implicit.
> 
> The major problem with interfaces is that you can't say later, oh, this 
> class implements that interface, but in Ruby, if there were interfaces, 
> the you could.

Interface conformity is generally ensured by running unit tests
on any classes that 'implement' the given 'interface'.

> regards,
> 
> Richard.

E