From: Just Another Victim of the Ambient Morality <ihatespam@...>
Date: 2006-08-22T23:20:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Static typing ain't so bad, after all...


<dblack@wobblini.net> wrote in message 
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.0608220913080.27742@rubypal.com...
> Hi --
>
> On Tue, 22 Aug 2006, Just Another Victim of the Ambient Morality wrote:
>
>>    I was debugging someone else's code the other day (it was htmltools,
>> actually) and I was in the middle of some function trying to figure out
>> what it does.  That's when I noticed that I had no clue what the passed 
>> in
>> parameter was.  I mean, I can see how it was used but it really didn't
>> reveal what it was.  In fact, it could have been anything.  I could have
>> tried to do a search to see when this method was called and try to
>> investigate what was passed in at each instance but that would not
>> necessarily be revealing since the object may not have been created in
>> those methods and, instead, passed into them.
>>    The problem is that dynamic typing, while very powerful, also hid the
>> intent of the method.  Obviously, any object that satisfied whatever the
>> method was trying to do will suffice as a parameter, and that would be 
>> the
>> point of duck typing, there was obviously some concrete example of some
>> type the method was expecting.  It would really have helped to let me 
>> know
>> what that was...
>>    Now, the answer to this is simply better documentation.  Write a damn
>> comment that says what the method is expecting and, hell, while you're 
>> at
>> it, you could mention what the method does, too.  However and
>> unfortunately, I've been a professional programmer way too long to 
>> expect
>> code to come with good documentation.  Out here, in the real world, 
>> you're
>> lucky if the code works...
>>    Has anyone noticed this?  How do you deal with this issue?
>
> I think a good first step is to read "Programming Ruby" by Dave Thomas
> et al., especially the part where he explains in detail that type and
> class are not the same thing in Ruby.

    I don't think this semantic argument has much to do with my problem...


> Also, please -- PLEASE -- read the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of
> posts about this in the ruby-talk archives.  I'm not optimistic about
> breaking the cycle; it seems we're doomed to have this thread repeated
> three or four times a year.  But, I don't know, maybe one of these
> years we can stop.

    I don't know what you're talking about.  What is this "ruby-talk" of 
which you speak?  I assume that, whatever it is, it has archives...
    I've been on this newsgroup for some time now and I haven't heard 
anyone complain about this so either you're exaggerating the frequency of 
this question or you're very impatient...


> Don't take my curmudgeonliness personally.  It's just that there's
> really not much else left to say on the topic.

    I don't take your "curmudgeonliness" personally, although I suspect 
that there's plenty to say about this topic...