AstonJ

AstonJ

Do you say 'unpack' or 'destructure'?

Consider this Erlang code:

Rectangle = {rectangle, 20, 10}.
{rectangle, Width, Height} = Rectangle.
> Width.
20
> Height.
10

When I was watching an Elixir video the person kept calling this ‘destructuring’ (which I think is what they say in the JS world?) but Joe Armstrong, in his book Programming Erlang, calls this ‘unpacking’ - so I am curious, how do you refer to it when using a BEAM language?

  • Unpack
  • Destructure
  • Use the terms interchangeably depending on the language
  • Something else - please say in thread!

0 voters

Most Liked

chriseyre2000

chriseyre2000

Technically it’s pattern matching since we can be more specific by repeating a variable to ensure that it is used in multiple places.

Eiji

Eiji

Object : typeof instance === "object". Special non-data but Structural type for any constructed object instance also used as data structures: new Object, new Array, new Map, new Set, new WeakMap, new WeakSet, new Date and almost everything made with new keyword;

Source: JavaScript data types and data structures - JavaScript | MDN

This quote shows us that equivalent/similar data types across languages are implemented and therefore grouped differently which means that we can’t use exactly same naming. Different naming forces new developer to think: Why it's named like that? and that ends up with looking for it’s definition.

The destructuring assignment syntax is a JavaScript expression that makes it possible to unpack values from arrays, or properties from objects, into distinct variables.

Source: Destructuring assignment - JavaScript | MDN

Having in mind that both destructure and unpack are used only for arrays and objects it’s confusing to use them in Elixir for other data types like for example string. Destructure naming could also be confusing for newbies as we have structs.

Destructure and unpack antonyms suggest that we have something structured or packed which is not always true. While it’s common to say that we are unpacking bits from string still we can’t say that we are unpacking something from literal like for example: 5 = variable.

Generally i.e. for all data types I prefer to think about some connection of assignment, fetch, pattern and take words (which are most common) like taking by pattern or something like that.

@AstonJ Considering your Erlang code we can say that we are taking items: rectangle, Width and Height by 3-element tuple pattern of Rectangle variable. What do you think about it?

Where Next?

Popular Backend topics Top

wolf4earth
Serverless has been quite a prevalent topic in our industry in the past few years, and while there are a lot of sceptics, I think it’s sa...
New
bot
A new item has been posted: This thread was posted automatically, if you feel it could be in a better category and are at Trust Level ...
New
New
First poster: bot
This Python script mimics Babbage’s Difference Engine. In Use this Python script to simulate Babbage’s Difference Engine, Python offered...
New
New
finner
Just wondering how many devs out there are using Spring Reactive, specifically WebFlux?
New
First poster: bot
Welcome to RETRO, my personal take on the Forth language. This is a modern system primarily targetting desktop, mobile, and servers, th...
New
Jsdr3398
I really need developers to help create my messaging platform but I’m not sure how much they want etc. I’ve never hired anyone before :s...
New
mafinar
This is going to be a long an frequently posted thread. While talking to a friend of mine who has taken data structure and algorithm cou...
New
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
What chair do you have while working… and why? Is there a ‘best’ type of chair or working position for developers?
New
Exadra37
Please tell us what is your preferred monitor setup for programming(not gaming) and why you have chosen it. Does your monitor have eye p...
New
dasdom
No chair. I have a standing desk. This post was split into a dedicated thread from our thread about chairs :slight_smile:
New
DevotionGeo
I know that -t flag is used along with -i flag for getting an interactive shell. But I cannot digest what the man page for docker run com...
New
AstonJ
There’s a whole world of custom keycaps out there that I didn’t know existed! Check out all of our Keycaps threads here: https://forum....
New
AstonJ
Thanks to @foxtrottwist’s and @Tomas’s posts in this thread: Poll: Which code editor do you use? I bought Onivim! :nerd_face: https://on...
New
AstonJ
Do the test and post your score :nerd_face: :keyboard: If possible, please add info such as the keyboard you’re using, the layout (Qw...
New
New
CommunityNews
A Brief Review of the Minisforum V3 AMD Tablet. Update: I have created an awesome-minisforum-v3 GitHub repository to list information fo...
New
AstonJ
If you’re getting errors like this: psql: error: connection to server on socket “/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432” failed: No such file or directory ...
New