[programming-languages] What is duck typing?

The term Duck Typing is a lie.

You see the idiom “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a duck." that is being repeated here time after time.

But that is not what duck typing (or what we commonly refer to as duck typing) is about. All that the Duck Typing we are discussing is about, is trying to force a command on something. Seeing whether something quacks or not, regardless of what it says it is. But there is no deduction about whether the object then is a Duck or not.

For true duck typing, see type classes. Now that follows the idiom “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a duck.". With type classes, if a type implements all the methods that are defined by a type class, it can be considered a member of that type class (without having to inherit the type class). So, if there is a type class Duck which defines certain methods (quack and walk-like-duck), anything that implements those same methods can be considered a Duck (without needing to inherit Duck).