From: Bulat Ziganshin <bulatz@...>
Date: 2002-10-03T13:26:22+09:00
Subject: Re: thoughts on typelessness

Hello Christoph,

Wednesday, October 02, 2002, 8:42:56 PM, you wrote:

C> I am wondering if you intended to write

C> class Float
C>     def initialize(MyType arg)
C>         ...
C>     end
C> end

C> (note Float.new is currently disable and I don't see any reason
C> to change this ...) .  Assuming that Ruby had overloading
C> you could write this as

C> def Float(MyType arg)
C>     ...
C> end

C> but  this can, as Goto pointed out,  already be done (imo more
C> elegantly) by delegating the conversion to the MyType class

C> module Kernel
C>     def  Float(arg)
C>         arg.to_float  # or to_flt
C>     end
C> end

C> /Btw . Following  C++'s example of mixing type
C> conversion and  overloading is imo a  really
C> terrible idea ..

yes, i think about Float.new(arg). lack of operator() is one of ruby
compromises :(

but about conversion - definitely we must go into direction of generic
interfaces:

 module Kernel
     def  Float(arg)
         arg.to(Float)
     end
 end

 of course, pattern matching when declaring arguments would help in
 this case



-- 
Best regards,
 Bulat                            mailto:bulatz@integ.ru