Type Safety (was Re: fun and empowerment)

Joe Blask argon at massnet1.net
Sat Jan 29 20:13:20 UTC 2000



> > > Does anyone know of any empirical evidence for the value
> > > of types?
> > > Or is it a myth that we invented to rationalize the typing
> > > needed to improve the compiler's performance?

My problem with static type checking is that the types in most languages are not
first class.  You cannot store them in datatypes or pass them as arguments to
functions, for example.  Type signature information that could potentially be
useful to a programmer is thrown away by the compiler.

   I also do not like inputting code that doesn't *DO* anything.

   Static type-checking is not good for rapid prototyping of applications.  It
is more suitable for problem domains where the problem is well understood.  I
like the idea that Dylan and Cecil have of making static type-checking optional.

  I grew up programming in Algol-W on old IBM Mainframes in college.  I hated
Algol.  All the type-checking seemed to do was make programming more of a chore.

  In Smalltalk, at least, types are first class and can be computed with.

  I hope that the type-specifying language eventually employed in Squeak will
also be expressive and that abstract type-relations will be supported.

      ==Joe Blask==







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