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
pillaiindu
I have heard many times that languages with a garbage collector aren’t great for system programming. Today I saw a book titled “Hands-On ...
New
New
bot
So you want to live-reload Rust - fasterthanli.me. Good morning! It is still 2020, and the world is literally on fire , so I guess we c...
New
New
First poster: bot
About Self Self is a prototype-based dynamic object-oriented programming language, environment, and virtual machine centered around the p...
New
mudasobwa
To promote Tarearbol.DynamicManager I created the :heart_eyes_cat:-language (which is a brainfuck dialect.) Code outputting “Meow” to th...
New
kelvinst
I have being some Elixir open-source contributions and side projects. Oh, and I’m doing them on livestreams on my twitch channel, follow ...
New
mafinar
Hello folks! We had a pretty fun thread here around the same time last year - talking about Advent of Code problems. That also happened t...
New
apoorv-2204
I’m experimenting with Hexagonal / Clean Architecture in Elixir. The classic Behaviour + Impl split works great for mocking and isolating...
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Stop developing web apps with yesterday’s tools. Today, developers are increasingly adopting Clojure as a web-development platform. See f...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Ruby, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, Haskell. With Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, by Bruce A. Tate, you’ll go beyond the syntax—and...
New
Rainer
My first contact with Erlang was about 2 years ago when I used RabbitMQ, which is written in Erlang, for my job. This made me curious and...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
From finance to artificial intelligence, genetic algorithms are a powerful tool with a wide array of applications. But you don't need an ...
New
New
AstonJ
I ended up cancelling my Moonlander order as I think it’s just going to be a bit too bulky for me. I think the Planck and the Preonic (o...
New
AstonJ
This looks like a stunning keycap set :orange_heart: A LEGENDARY KEYBOARD LIVES ON When you bought an Apple Macintosh computer in the e...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Use WebRTC to build web applications that stream media and data in real time directly from one user to another, all in the browser. ...
New
sir.laksmana_wenk
I’m able to do the “artistic” part of game-development; character designing/modeling, music, environment modeling, etc. However, I don’t...
New
RobertRichards
Hair Salon Games for Girls Fun Girls Hair Saloon game is mainly developed for kids. This game allows users to select virtual avatars to ...
New