From: dblack@...
Date: 2006-07-25T22:35:15+09:00
Subject: Re: I'll have the duck!

Hi --

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006, Daniel DeLorme wrote:

> dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
>> I've always thought that Dave Thomas coined it, and that it then
>> caught on (including outside of Ruby).  Either way -- I think that
>> using "duck" in method and class names dilutes the meaning of "duck
>> typing", and also does a disservice to the stuff people are writing,
>> some of which may be quite interesting.  When I see these
>> prototype-style libraries named "duck" this and that, I'm just aware
>
> So your objection is merely semantic? If DuckTyping isn't the "proper"
> word to use, what would you suggest? That little module I knocked
> together was just a way to mix-in methods into any object that responds
> to the proper quacks--er, messages. DuckTyping seems like a good way to
> describe that to me.

The problem is that "duck typing" is already "taken" :-)

>> of the fact that duck typing isn't something one can implement in
>> code, and that therefore the point of this code is being obscured
>> rather than revealed by the naming.
>
> That sounds very silly, like saying that OOP or functional programming
> can't be implemented in code.

I do wish we could keep "silly" and "delusional" and so on out of it.
Anyway -- my point is that duck typing is not a library-level language
facility that you or I can write and 'require' and thus add to Ruby. 
Even if there's a module called DuckTyping, people who ignore that 
module are still 100% as capable of using a duck-typing approach as 
people who use the module.  The existence of the module is orthogonal
to both the duck-typing friendliness of the language, and the 
duck-typing programming style of the people using the language.

It's a bit like writing a module called ObjectOrientation.  The module 
might do something wonderful, but it doesn't add object orientation to 
Ruby :-)  (I think I stole that example from Chad Fowler, from a 
discussion of something else a couple of years ago.)

So my suggestion was, and is, to name your module something else, and
then trust duck-typing devotees (and others) to examine it and decide
whether it helps them out.


David

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