From: Robert Feldt <feldt@...>
Date: 2001-12-12T09:09:12+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:28292] Re: The benefits of dynamic typing?

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Harry Ohlsen wrote:

> > Something like
> > 
> > class T
> >   type_hint Integer, :m, Integer, Integer
> >  def m(a,b)
> >     a+b
> >   end
> > end
> 
> I assume what this means is that the method is intended to return
> Integer, and the arguments are both intended to be Integer, hence the VM
> is being asked to do appropriate conversions, if possible, if the actual
> arguments passed (or the return value) don't match?
> 
No, actually I had something else in mind but you can easily add the
semantics you want. I guess you can even use this scheme to write 
"overloaded" operators in this C++-style

class MyClass
  type_hint MyClass, :m, Integer
  def m(anInt)
    #...
  end

  type_hint MyClass, :m, Float
  def m(aFloat)
    #...
  end
end

but implementation is left as an excersise for the
reader... :-) (Basically type_hint has to rename any-previous incarnations
of the method and then add a dispatcher choosing the actual method based
on the types...)

I'm not saying its good, just doable!

What I had in mind was type annotations to make optimizations possible
when you doing a compiler.

Regards,

Robert