From: MenTaLguY <mental@...>
Date: 2008-04-03T03:55:53+09:00
Subject: Re: A Question Of Coupling

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 03:46:49 +0900, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
> Now, my inner OOP Angel is telling me to take door #2 in order to
> avoid strong coupling between Bar and Foo. But, my Red Ruby Devil is
> saying "Duck typing, you fool. It doesn't matter anymore!"
> 
> Is he right? Has Ruby completely changed the game?

I don't see why that would be true in this case.  In #1, Foo's
implementation depends on Bar's public interface, whereas in #2,
there is no coupling at all between them.

Put another way:  duck typing is still, in a sense, typing.  In #1,
you aren't constrained to pass in a Bar, specifically, but you must
still pass in an object which satisfies the same un-named object
protocol as instances of Bar do.

(Perhaps we should call it "ninja typing"?)

> If so, why aren't more Rubyists using OStruct-esque option passing?

Ruby doesn't make it as frictionless as it could be, particularly if
you want default values for your options.

-mental