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

AstonJ
Partly interested in this so we can set up tags, but also because I’m out of touch with which frameworks are hot right now and I’m curiou...
New
AstonJ
Currently a hot topic in the BEAM world, let’s start a thread for it (as suggested by @crowdhailer here) :smiley: What are your current...
New
bot
A new item has been posted: https://crates.io/crates/rsfbclient This thread was posted automatically, if you feel it could be in a bett...
New
New
First poster: bot
Multicore OCaml: October 2020. Welcome to the October 2020 multicore OCaml report, compiled by @shakthimaan, @kayceesrk and of course my...
New
AstonJ
If you are experiencing Rails console using 100% CPU on your dev machine, then updating your development and test gems might fix the issu...
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
mafinar
Hello! Advent of Year 2023 is upon us and like past few years, I’ll be opening threads discussing each year’s problems. Day 1 was today....
New
apoorv-2204
Hi everyone, I’m considering pursuing the Elixir/Erlang certification exam offered by Erlang Solutions and wanted to check in with the c...
New
NKTgLaw
Hi everyone :waving_hand:, I’ve been experimenting with a physics-inspired principle called the NKTg Law of Variable Inertia. It connec...
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
A thread that every forum needs! Simply post a link to a track on YouTube (or SoundCloud or Vimeo amongst others!) on a separate line an...
New
AstonJ
Or looking forward to? :nerd_face:
485 12328 258
New
DevotionGeo
The V Programming Language Simple language for building maintainable programs V is already mentioned couple of times in the forum, but I...
New
mafinar
Crystal recently reached version 1. I had been following it for awhile but never got to really learn it. Most languages I picked up out o...
New
AstonJ
Continuing the discussion from Thinking about learning Crystal, let’s discuss - I was wondering which languages don’t GC - maybe we can c...
New
Maartz
Hi folks, I don’t know if I saw this here but, here’s a new programming language, called Roc Reminds me a bit of Elm and thus Haskell. ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: VM Brasseur @vmbrasseur We have a treat for you today! We turn the spotlight onto Open Source as we sit down with V...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Programming Ruby is the most complete book on Ruby, covering both the language itself and the standard library as well as commonly used 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
mindriot
Ok, well here are some thoughts and opinions on some of the ergonomic keyboards I have, I guess like mini review of each that I use enoug...
New