From: dblack@...
Date: 2006-09-22T18:24:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Apology [WAS: Re: Ducktator - A Duck Type Validator]

Hi --

On Thu, 21 Sep 2006, Ola Bini wrote:

> The point I was aiming at, is that this discussion about duck typing seem to 
> exhibit various interpretations of the concept, and everyone was ready to 
> defend their own versions of it, but there isn't an easy way to say who was 
> wrong or who right, since the concept is a philosophy more than a practice or 
> a technique.

It seems to me that duck typing exhibits a kind of self-similar
behavior with respect to both what it is and what it describes: in
other words, people seem to take the view that, "If it walks like duck
typing and quacks like duck typing, then it is duck typing" :-)

So we've ended up with a proliferation of concepts, practices,
modules, libraries, etc. with the word "duck" floating around them.
Some of these things are, in themselves, quite interesting and
resourceful, but they'd be better off without "duck".

I guess I'm old-fashioned; I think Dave's discussion and explanation
of duck typing is still authoritative, clear, and unimproved upon by
subsequent borrowings of the term.  But it's true that the term has
become very vexed, unfortunately, so that it's hard to use it
"innocently" to refer to what Dave was talking about.

So maybe we need "Thomasine typing" or something like that :-)


David

-- 
                   David A. Black | dblack@wobblini.net
Author of "Ruby for Rails"   [1] | Ruby/Rails training & consultancy [3]
DABlog (DAB's Weblog)        [2] | Co-director, Ruby Central, Inc.   [4]
[1] http://www.manning.com/black | [3] http://www.rubypowerandlight.com
[2] http://dablog.rubypal.com    | [4] http://www.rubycentral.org