From: Luke Graham <spoooq@...>
Date: 2005-04-04T14:12:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby rite (Ruby 2.0) vaporware or real?

On Apr 4, 2005 3:10 PM, Luke Graham <spoooq@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 4, 2005 2:32 PM, Saynatkari <ruby-ml@magical-cat.org> wrote:
> > 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'.
> 
> I dont use interfaces as such in my own work, but thinking out loud on this...
> 
> module AnInterface
>   def amethod
>      "default"
>   end
> end
> 
> The app could test any object that claims to implement the interface
> by ...
> 
> AnInterface.instance_methods.each { |pm|
>   object.respond_to? pm ? raise "Bad object!"
> }

I think its pretty obvious there should be a bang in there somewhere :P

-- 
spooq