duck!

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 10/16/2010 05:18 PM, Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> Walter Bright, el 16 de octubre a las 11:16 me escribiste:
>> Label it "adaptTo" and few will even notice it. Label it "duck" and
>> people will click on the link to see what it does. It's important
>> that people notice that D has these things, and "duck" helps with
>> that.
>
> Well, maybe I'm not people, but I wouldn't click on anything named duck.
> And if you ask me, marketing is OK for a name product, but not for
> writing source code. You are putting marketing in the wrong place.
>
> I would hate to have to write meaningless code like:
>
> auto wow = buzz!Word(cool);
>
>> I've been in this business a long time, and while you'd think that
>> programmers are above "what's in a name", we are just like everyone
>> else. A catchy name gets results. Borland, for example, added a
>> trivial and boring feature to their linker, called it "smart
>> linking", and managed to get an unbelievable amount of hoopla from
>> the computer press out of it. They did it again with another feature
>> they called "zoom".
>
> You are underestimating people, if your targets are morons, that's the
> kind of people you'll get in the community.
>
>> Which blog article would you click on? "Interface Adapter for D" or
>> "Duck Typing for D"?
>
> Probably "Duck typing for D", but why can't you name the function
> "adapt", "adaptTo" or "as" and the article "Duck typing for D"???
> The article is the right place to do marketing and use cool names to get
> the attention, NOT THE CODE.
>
>> "duck" is a great name for the feature. It's short&  sweet, fits
>> right in with the popularity of duck typing, stands out, isn't
>> boring, etc. Heck, as proof, look at all the interest in this
>> thread!!
>
> What you're saying now is just plain stupid:
>
> 1. A long thread generally indicated the presence of something
>     controversial, not something good and accepted (those threads are
>     usually short, or filled with just "+1").
> 2. You can just post "hi" in this NG and get a thread of thousands of
>     messages ;)
>
> I hate myself, I just keep replying when I know this matter is closed,
> if both you and Andrei like something, is a dead end for any
> alternatives...
>
> Well, at least I will be able to say "I tried"...

How about this: we call "adapt" the strict adaptation of one interface 
to another and "ducktype" the loose adaptation that might fail 
dynamically. Would that float your boat?

Andrei