From: Jim Weirich <jim@...>
Date: 2006-03-16T22:35:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Variant types

Stefan Haflidason wrote:
> My languages lecturer is a fan of a feature called 'variant' in a model
> language he defined. The variant declaration is used to specify that a
> variable may be of one or another type

If I understand correctly, it sounds very much like a static lanugage 
concept, with little applicability to Ruby.  The problem with 
implementing it is Ruby is not to open up variables to more than one 
type (that happens automatically), but to artificially restrict the 
variable to the explicitly listed types.

> When he stated that no languages we are taught have this functionality,

Perhaps the key phrase is "we are taught", because as described, 
variants sound much like a union in C.  If I recall correctly, even 
Pascal has variant records that did much the same thing.  Of course, I 
may be misunderstanding yor description.

--
-- Jim Weirich


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