Ross Tuck has posted a new article to his site today talking about how he uses traits in his applications and where he sees them having the most value.

Recently, a few folks asked about a trait in a new project I wrote. Right around the same time, Rafael Dohms showed me his new talk about complex cognitive processes we don’t notice. Because my brain is a big mushy sack, the two blended together. The result was this post, which tries to capture how I use traits but also how I decide to use them in the first place.

He starts off with a bit of talk about leverage versus abstraction and how the concepts relate to code. He includes a brief example of each and points out that, while each is good, abstraction tends to be more useful. He then applies this back to the world of traits, how they compare to the use of normal static methods and how they have an advantage of encapsulation without oversharing. He suggests that assertions are more fit as static methods and that traits are a better fit in cases where multiple inheritance is needed. He also touches in interfaces in traits and his opinion on when is the best time to use them.