From: Trans <transfire@...>
Date: 2007-09-03T20:34:14+09:00
Subject: Re: How does ruby handle overloading?



On Sep 2, 5:50 am, pongba <pon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Matz once replied on Cedric's blog that
>
> I am not against "method overloading", but it very easily leads to
> optional static typing in the language, which changes the language
> very drastically, since you need to specify "type" to overload
> arguments. Without well-thought design, it can "destroy" the language
> and its culture. I have not yet got that well-thought design of method
> overloading.

Just FYI, I developed one a long time ago, based on Euphoria's model.
Basically worked like this, You define a "type" as such:

    type :foo, SomeClass, Modules, ..., :methods, ... do |v|
      # validation block ...
    end

Such that type "foo" is a subclass of SomeClass and/or includes
Modules, and/or repsonds_to? :methods, and/or validates against the
given block.

You'd then use this type definition to validate:

  def x(v)
    foo!(v)
    ...
  end

Of course, ideally then you could do:

  def x(foo v)
    ...
  end

Seems to me that's about the best one could do with a Ruby overload
system. Question is, is it worth the overhead?

T.