Re: [Caml-list] Smells like duck-typing

[Dario Teixeira <darioteixeira@yahoo.com>]

> So now you've defined full_story, blurb_story, and fresh_story as 
> types.  Now, I write:
> 
> let get_body (story: full_story) = story#get_body;;
> let my_blurb = new blurb_story(id, "A Title", "An Intro");;
> let my_body = get_body my_blurb;;
> 
> what happens?

Hi,

Well, that's only a problem if you insist in thinking in terms
of inheritance.  Remember that the semantics of marble-carving
are NOT "all that works on full_story should also work on blurb_story",
but the other way around.

Also, imagine you were to add the "get_body" method to the root
"story" class.  The type system in Marble-Caml is smart enough
to tell you that since the blurb_story carved out the "body" field,
then it must also carve out methods that use it.  Aren't imaginary
languages wonderfull?... :-)

(In addition, note that in any real world situation, it wouldn't
make any sense for the user to want to invoke get_body on a blurb
object -- after all, by definition blurbs have no body).

Cheers,
Dario



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