[ruby-talk:00369] Re: type-checking

----- Original Message -----
From: GOTO Kentaro <[e-mail]>
To: ruby-talk ML <[e-mail]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 7:05 PM
Subject: [ruby-talk:00368] Re: type-checking


> But for a local variable, such technic cannot be apply because the
> scope of a function is different from a local variable. On the other
> hand, the current specification on local variable is agreeable at
> least for me because it provides clean scope (except for blocks). And
> substitute-protection is done on execution whareas we generally expect
> to be done statically.  So, I consider Racc's way of type-checking is
> not enough for practical use.

Yes that's right, Racc don't implement static type-checking. It only
implements runtime type-checking for instance variables.
I think we don't need type-checking for local variables, because the author
of the code knows what types the variables have, and I can't imagine that
Ruby will ever have static-type checking. It is very good without!

Racc is very useful, not only to make coding easier and safer, but also to
help documenting the code a bit more.
It is desirable that the code documents itself, like Eiffel do it. But in
this aspect Ruby is not yet as far as Eiffel.


Michael