duck!

[Michel Fortin]

On 2010-10-16 13:19:36 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu 
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> said:

> The problem with "adaptTo" is that, just like itoa or printf, it is too 
> boring to have marketing value. I think the feature is going to be 
> _big_. We can't leave a big feature to a name like "adaptTo". The New 
> York Times won't have a headline like "adaptTo changes the name of the 
> game".

It's risky in my opinion to bet that it's going to be a feature big 
enough that everyone will remember what it means. Also, "duck" is a 
misnomer. The commonly-accepted meaning of duck typing is basically 
dynamic dispatch based on function names, and when the function doesn't 
exist it's a runtime error. I bet you'll get a ton of negative feedback 
for misrepresentation or deformation of the concept. That said, it 
could bring attention, but perhaps not the kind of attention you'd like.

Programmers like automated things. That feature should be called "magic 
adapters" or "cheap adapters" (or some variation of that) because it's 
an adapter and it's magic/cheap, and people can search "adapter" and 
immediately get hundreds of results explaining the concept. And the 
function name could be "adaptTo", or "adapt" (or "magic" if you want it 
to look funny).

And I think I agree with your arguments about "as" having problems.


> I'd go with the longer "ducktype". Length is not as important as 
> evocative power and brand name!
> 
> auto d = ducktype!Drawable(obj);

At this point, why not call it ducktape™. Now that's a brand name.


-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/