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Chapter 8. Metaprogramming, protocols, a... > Protocols instead of interfaces
8.1. Protocols instead of interfaces
Interfaces are used in C# to specify behavior of objects. For example, if a class implements the IDisposable interface, then you can provide a Dispose method to release resources used by your objects. .NET has a whole host of interfaces, and you can create new ones. If a class implements an interface, it provides a static target for the compiler to call whenever an operation provided by that interface is used in your code.
Note
C# does have one example of duck typing: enumeration with the IEnumerable interface. To support iteration over an object,[1] classes can either implement IEnumerable or provide a GetEnumerator method. GetEnumerator can either return a type that implements IEnumerator or one that declares all the methods defined in IEnumerator.
[1] From http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ttw7t8t6(VS.71).aspx.
