Bombay duck Bombay duck The Bombay duck or bummalo ("Harpadon nehereus"), is a lizardfish. Adults may reach a maximum length of 40 cm, but the usual size is around 25 cm. The origin of the term "Bombay duck" is uncertain. One popular etymology relates to railways. When the rail links started on the Indian subcontinent, people from eastern Bengal were made aware of the great availability of the locally prized fish on India's western coasts and began importing them by the railways. Since the smell of the dried fish was overpowering, its transportation was later consigned to the mail train; the Bombay
Duck typing more clearly. To proponents of static type checking, duck typing suggests the "absence" of typing, making its incorporation of the term "typing" appear incoherent. Duck typing Duck typing in computer programming is an application of the duck test—"If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck"—to determine if an object can be used for a particular purpose. With normal typing, suitability is determined by an object's type. In duck typing, an object's suitability is determined by the presence of certain methods and properties, rather than the type of the object itself.