From: MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam@...>
Date: 2002-09-27T05:36:54+09:00
Subject: Re: adding overload to ruby


"Rich Kilmer" <rich@infoether.com> wrote in message
news:002801c26598$60144250$d701a8c0@TECHNO...
> Well, I would like the idea of optional typing in one instance...to
> publish a WSDL file for a Ruby class (as a web service) you need the
> types of the parameters...in other words, if Ruby is going to be used as
> a producer of WSDL/SOAP web services, types are needed to allow it to
> interact with all those statically-typed languages.  So, if Matz is
> going to add some sort of type 'hinting' it would be nice to access it
> through reflection...somehow ;-)

You could also view the WSDL as a way to apply types to Ruby. A marshaller
could then use the same file against multiple services with proper type
conversions.

If Ruby were to integrate with MS Dot NET you'd have a similar problem -
again the marshaller could take the typehints from an external definition.
In fact Win32Ole does something similar via the COM type libraries.

For an optimizing compiler however, native type hints would be relevant - as
is seen with Dylan.

Mikkel