Contravariance [Was Re: what is easier to learn first?...]

[Gordon McMillan]

D. Michael McFarland writes:

> >>>>> "WT" == William Tanksley 
[ Eiffel ]
>  WT>...  I don't agree with the author re: contravariance
>  WT> versus covariance.
> 
> Twang! (Sound of an engineer being clothes-lined by a CS concept)

That's OK. Engineers are cheap <wink>.
 
> "contravariance" and "covariance" here caught my eye.
> 
> I hate to reveal my ignorance to this group (again), but I have to
> ask: What do these terms mean in this context?

You've gotten a couple replies that made me doubt my own 
understanding. The two together are sometimes known as 
"substitutability", which says, that when creating derived 
classes "require no more, promise (or deliver) no less". One of 
those is the "co" and the other is the "contra".

"As the types of output parameters and return values can thus 
be varied in the same direction as the types of the containing 
interfaces, this is called covariance."

"As the types of input parameters can thus be varied in the 
opposite direction of the types of the containing interfaces, 
this is called contravariance."
(Clemens Szyperski)

As "require no more, deliver no less" it makes sense, and 
despite the rantings of that well known lunatic <wink>, Mr. 
Tanksley, is a worthy goal.

The trouble starts when you make this dogma. There are lots 
of times when the easy / sensible / intuitive way of doing 
things violates this rule, (eg, the example another poster gave 
of Animal eats food, but Carnivore eats only meat - another 
case is frameworks which almost always violate these rules). 
Then you either end up turning the world inside out so it will fit 
the rules, or you start legislating exceptions (which is what 
Eiffel does).

So, in the first case (turning the world inside out), we would 
declare that Food is an output of the Eats method, and 
actually feeding the poor things is outside the scope of the 
system.

The debate waxes long and loud on comp.lang.object, but 
don't go there. Read Dante's Inferno instead.

promise-her-everything-just-don't-give-your-real-name-ly y'rs

- Gordon