On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 00:37:10 +0400, Andrei Alexandrescu
<seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org> wrote:
I was talking to Walter about Kenji's adaptTo. We both think it's a very
powerful enabler, but adaptTo is a bland name. After discussing a few
marketing strategies, I proposed "duck". It's short, simple, and evokes
"duck typing".
class C
{
int draw(){ return 10; }
}
interface Drawable
{
long draw();
}
...
auto c = new C;
auto d = duck!Drawable(c); // awes
Kenji, I'll be looking forward to your submission :o). Would be great to
allow structs to duck, too!
Andrei
There is a lot in common between to and adaptTo (even the original names
are similar). 'to' converts one type to another (unless the two are
implicitly castable) and 'adaptTo' does the same. 'adaptTo' can transform
some types that 'to' can't, and vice versa.
In my opinion, they don't compete but supplement each other. As such I
would prefer merging the two together:
auto c = to!(Drawable)(c); // try casting to Drawable first, return
adaptTo(Drawable) if it fails.
The difference between 'as' and 'to' is subtle yet both names are short
and might be confusing for many people, not only novices. Yet 'as' is
better than 'duck' imo.
