From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2006-04-03T03:39:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Typed Parameters

From: "Trans" <transfire@gmail.com>
>
> I've creted my method to deal with Integer's
> that's what I designed it to do. You want to send it a Watchamacallit?
> Why? You really think it's going to work? Do you know enough about the
> method I wrote to think that using it with Watchamcallit's will be all
> that beneficial?

I don't see why you would need to bear the burden of worrying
about this.  Let it be my problem, if I feel the need to use
your library in a way you hadn't anticipated.  :)

> If a Watchamacallit isn't Integery enough to be a
> subclass of one or be coerced into one, what makes you think it SHOULD
> work? What if you change Watchamacallit later on? What if my mehtod
> changes later on?

Hmm... This is starting to remind me of public vs. private
methods.  Ruby lets me call a private method on one of your
classes, but I have to do so explicitly - and if your class
internals change later on and my call to that private method
breaks, I won't be surprised.  I took the risk deliberately.

Maybe if parameter types could be specified and enforced in
some way where I, the library user, would have a means of
calling the method that would bypass those checks?  So that,
most of the time, I pass in an Integer and everyone's happy.
But if I decide that passing in a Watchamacallit best meets
my needs, then there should be a way to call your method and
bypass the type checks - even if I have to be explicit about
it.

I guess what I'm saying is IF there were typed parameters,
I think there should be a way around the checks, similar to
how we can call private methods when we really need to.


Regards,

Bill