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Have you ever worked with a language that has header files (C/C++) or a language that can use them optionally (Ocaml)? In practice, keeping the files in sync is
by amw-zero 6y ago
Have you ever worked with a language that has header files (C/C++) or a language that can use them optionally (Ocaml)? In practice, keeping the files in sync isn’t difficult. In fact, it ends up being better (for me) in terms of readability, because I can look up the type definitions in one place, store them as context, and then read code that isn’t littered with type annotations. Type annotations add quite a bit of noise to code. I think that’s what Matz is going for here. You need to be able to keep the readability of Ruby, which he’s dedicated his life to.
- Jweb_Guru 6y agoNot to anecdote too hard, but the practice of doing type signatures out-of-line that you are describing is my absolute least favorite part of OCaml, which is otherwise a very lovely language. As for C++, it has enough other stuff going on that I probably can't say the header files are my least favorite feature, but they certainly don't make life easy. I think it makes sense to challenge that decision from an ergonomics standpoint, even if it makes sense within the constraints the Ruby core team has decided upon.
- amw-zero 6y agoI very much like Ocaml signature files. Jane street recommends using them, as an example. There’s no other way to communicate the high level contract of a module. With type signatures that are in line with the code, the high level contract gets lost.