From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2003-11-20T09:24:58+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping" (was: Re: Strong Typing (Re: Managing metadata  about attribute types) )

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 08:21:34 +0900, Sean O'Dell wrote:
> On Wednesday 19 November 2003 03:04 pm, Austin Ziegler wrote:
>> It's also a lie. MyFakeRuwikiClass doesn't implement the
>> necessary interface. And *that*, Sean, is why name checking *of
>> any sort* is useless. MyFakeRuwikiClass says that it's a
>> RuwikiClass, but it isn't.
> But to a person passing in a unsuitable object, it notifies them
> "hey, you need this object here." Right now, you just get deep
> errors. Either way, you can lie and force in anything you want.
> The initial error message gives you a heads-up, though.

So does the existing one:

  foo.backend
  NoMethodError: undefined method `backend' for #<Foo:0x28222d8>

I know that there's no backend method defined. If I'm mocking up
Ruwiki, then I better know what #backend is. I'll also get a
specific line where it's been called.

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.11.19
                                         * 19.22.06