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

New
finner
Just wondering how many devs out there are using Spring Reactive, specifically WebFlux?
New
AstonJ
Inspired by this post by @stefan.jarina, I’m curious about the kind of Bash scripts you’ve written and whether you still use Bash given t...
New
Jsdr3398
I’ve recently become interested in Elixir and all it’s neat perks. And since I’m currently working on a messaging platform; elixir seems ...
New
Jsdr3398
I love how elixir works and some of its perks, but I’m still pretty uncomfortable, especially when mix/hex gets involved. Did anyone els...
New
Exadra37
Finishing my app to take notes on Videos: I am aiming to put it online on my playground by this weekend. Edit: It’s up https://video...
New
DevotionGeo
What do you people do for reading Erlang docs? Is there something like Ruby’s ri? I installed manual pages for Erlang under /usr/local/...
New
AstonJ
And the blog: Rails has been unapologetically full stack since the beginning. We’ve continuously sought to include ever-more default an...
New
jaeyson
Hi all!, anybody tried this Elixir quiz from @Tetiana? She’s the one who made Elixircards.
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

Devtalk
Hello Devtalk World! Please let us know a little about who you are and where you’re from :nerd_face:
New
Devtalk
Reading something? Working on something? Planning something? Changing jobs even!? If you’re up for sharing, please let us know what you’...
1063 24245 395
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Design and develop sophisticated 2D games that are as much fun to make as they are to play. From particle effects and pathfinding to soci...
New
brentjanderson
Bought the Moonlander mechanical keyboard. Cherry Brown MX switches. Arms and wrists have been hurting enough that it’s time I did someth...
New
husaindevelop
Inside our android webview app, we are trying to paste the copied content from another app eg (notes) using navigator.clipboard.readtext ...
New
AnfaengerAlex
Hello, I’m a beginner in Android development and I’m facing an issue with my project setup. In my build.gradle.kts file, I have the foll...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Explore the power of Ash Framework by modeling and building the domain for a real-world web application. Rebecca Le @sevenseacat and ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
An illustrated guide to understanding and effectively using regular expressions. Staffan Nöteberg To effectively use regular expressi...
New
AstonJ
Curious what kind of results others are getting, I think actually prefer the 7B model to the 32B model, not only is it faster but the qua...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Escape callback hell and ship fast, clean code that reads as smoothly as it runs. Squash bugs and stamp out memory leaks with an intuitiv...
New