On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 dblack / wobblini.net wrote:

> Hi --
>
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, ara.t.howard / noaa.gov wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 dblack / wobblini.net wrote:
>> 
>>> My view is that we don't need to choose a winner-take-all term to refer
>>> collectively to *everything* connected with Ruby's type mechanism, 
>>> including
>>> the way(s) programmers use that mechanism.  We can have a slightly 
>>> whimsical
>>> but expressive term like "duck typing" to refer to one aspect of it, and
>>> other terms to refer to other, related things.  I'm fond of "duck typing",
>>> "quasi-prototyped objects", and various other terms -- all of which refer 
>>> to
>>> something of interest.
>> 
>> indeed - still that 'type' bit is quite a cause for confusion.
>
> Don't take it too absolutely concretely on a word-by-word basis,
> though.  The "typing" in "duck typing" is a bit like the "bookkeeping"
> in "creative bookkeeping" :-)

__except__ for the fact that 'type' is easily one of the most semantically and
emotionally loaded words for computer scientists - especially those coming
from strongly typed languages - so its use naturally (as a search on this list
will demonstrate) leads over and over to the people's thinking of 'duck
typing' as defining categories meeting 'is_a/can_be' type constraints and as
being something that can be written.

even though we all know the duck typing that can be named is not the real duck
typing.

sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

-a
-- 
suffering increases your inner strength.  also, the wishing for suffering
makes the suffering disappear.
- h.h. the 14th dali lama