From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2003-11-20T06:45:32+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping" (was: Re: Strong Typing (Re: Managing metadata about attribute types) )

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 06:02:05 +0900, Sean O'Dell wrote:
> On Wednesday 19 November 2003 12:29 pm, Austin Ziegler wrote:
>> Matz: note that Python went through this discussion five years
>> ago and it still doesn't have it. I'm not sure Ruby *really*
>> needs it, either. The only thing that I think Ruby could use is a
>> standardized way of publishing method signature information for
>> the cases I've outlined.
> A good system of method signatures serves the same purpose in my
> mind, if they're convenient enough to call that we can expect
> people to actually use them where they're needed, and not avoid
> them because they're a pain to use.
> 
> Either way, the called method can ask "does this object do what I
> want?" which is all I am after.

What you're talking about and what I'm talking about are two
different things. I'm talking about informative metadata, not
enforcement or error diagnostics. I'm also specifically talking
about it in the cases outlined -- RPC and GUI object inspectors.

> As someone who has developed libraries in Lisp, C, C++, Java,
> Ruby, Perl, Visual Basic, Delphi, Pascal, bash shell, as well as
> developing O'Basic, a complete script language itself, I can tell
> you that I have always tried to make life easier for the
> developers who have had to use my libraries.

I would suggest that you haven't used my libraries, then. Because if
you had, you would know that your suggestion has nothing to do with
reality.

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.11.19
                                         * 16.42.05