From: 7rans Date: 2006-07-26T01:51:51+09:00 Subject: Re: I'll have the duck! Phil Tomson wrote: > On 7/25/06, 7rans wrote: > > > > The problem, David, is that you are adding _nothing constructive_ to > > the conversation. You are merely being persnickety over terminology. No > > one else is having any trouble over the use the word "duck" in the > > code, or what it represents. Certainly I don't expect "duck" to become > > a keyword of the language, but it serves perfectly well for this > > exploration -- it is ultimately an analogy after all, "if it walks like > > duck and talks like a duck..." We're using the analogy. > > Actually, David is doing something very important: he's making sure > that we name things correctly and that we not change our terminology. > You've used the term 'duck-typing' in a way that differs from it's > traditional use in tthe Ruby community. David is calling you on that > and basically saying that either you need to come up with a different > terminology to describe what you're doing or we'll have to come up > with a different name for what currently has been considered > 'duck-typing'. > > It's been said that naming is one of the most important acts of > programming. What we call things, objects and even concepts is > important. If you take a name (duck typing) and apply it to a concept > that's different than what is the accepted association in the > community, then in some way your 'theft' diminishes our ability to > communicate within our discourse community. Some would even say it > diminishes the whole concept of 'duck typing'. Look up Wittgenstein > on wikipedia. But that's not what I am doing. Reread what I have wrote. I am not "stealing" anything. I am using teh current terminology as a jumping off point preceisly becuase that current terminology Is the jumping off point by which I arrived at the notion to begin with. It's useful for the discussion and exploration. No one's suggestion that "ducktype" shuold added to the langaugge nor even that it would be the some fterm used in some addon library. In fact I would not support any such thing b/c duck type is really a prerty poor term to begin with (as I joking poitn out to David). Anyhow, as far as I'm concerned David has once again runied a conversation that was actually showing signs of baring fruit. As this point you can call it "donkey type" for all I care. Because a donkey by any other name is still as ass. T.