On 2012-March-21, at 6:38 pm, Daniel Carrera wrote: > The idea of smart-matching a function just doesn't quite fit with my brain. I > can memorize the fact that smart-matching 7 and &foo means evaluating foo(7) > and seeing if the value is true, but I can't say I "understand" it.
Maybe it just needs a better name. "Match" implies that two (or more) things are being compared against each other, and that's how smart-matching started out, but it's been generalised beyond that. The underlying .ACCEPTS method suggests "acceptance"... but that's too broad (a function can "accept" args without returning true). "Agreement" fits, in the sense of "that [food] agrees with me", but I think it suggests equality a bit too strongly. "Accordance"? "Conformance"? "Validation"? That seems a good match (ahem) for the concept: ~~ checks whether some value is "valid" (or "desired"?) according to certain criteria. The obvious way to validate some value against a simple string or number is to compare them; or against a pattern, to see if the value matches; but given a function, you check the value by passing it to the function and seeing whether it says yea or nay. I'm not sure "validation" or "validity" is the best name, but it conforms better to what smart-"matching" does. Or "conformance".... Hm. But terminology that sets up the appropriate expectations is a good thing. -David
