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From: Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com>
Cc: Guile Users <guile-user@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Do we have to worry about the names of generic functions?
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 20:40:38 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1084563638.32494.72.camel@localhost> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <m3y8nx1v2m.fsf@multivac.cwru.edu>

On Wed, 2004-05-12 at 12:14 -0400, Paul Jarc wrote:
> Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> wrote:
> > Consider a generic, `output'. I assert that x.output() in Python does
> > not clobber the namespace.
> 
> Agreed, because that name exists only within "x.".

I'm not sure this is true. Of course python people will agree with you,
but contrast it to the message-passing style of programming, where a
message only has meaning in as much as the recipient knows how to deal
with it. Likewise, output() only means something if `x' has an output
field, and generics only have meaning in as much as a method has been
specialized for a type.

If the generic has not been specialized for a certain type, it won't
apply. The corresponding situation would be if x (or a superclass)
doesn't define an output() method. I'm not clear on the difference,
except wrt collisions with non-generics, which I believe Andreas
covered.

There is still something inside me saying that modules should not be
exporting identifiers like 'field or 'parent. But logic's leading me the
other way!

Cheers,
-- 
Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com>


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  parent reply	other threads:[~2004-05-14 19:40 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2004-05-12 10:34 Do we have to worry about the names of generic functions? Andy Wingo
2004-05-12 16:14 ` Paul Jarc
2004-05-12 20:34   ` Andreas Rottmann
2004-05-13 17:53     ` Rob Browning
2004-05-13 18:08       ` Andreas Rottmann
2004-05-13 19:49         ` Rob Browning
2004-05-14 19:40   ` Andy Wingo [this message]
2004-05-15 19:53     ` Paul Jarc
2004-05-13 18:38 ` Rob Browning
2004-05-14 19:53   ` Andy Wingo

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