Gilad
just submitted a position paper for the RDL (Revival of Dynamic 
Language at OOPSLA)
http://pico.vub.ac.be/%7Ewdmeuter/RDL04/index.html
Soon the paper will be there and Gilad told me that he updated his web 
page to add a presentation
about pluggable type system.

Stef


On 18 oct. 04, at 00:35, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Andres,
>
>
>> AR> I respect your opinions but please don't put things into my mouth 
>> that I
>> AR> haven't said or meant.
>>
>> I did not put words in your mouth.  I expressed what I understood you
>> meant.  I'd like to know how I didn't get what you wrote.
>
> Well, for one thing, I haven't even said what I expect from a type 
> system. For another, I haven't said whether it would be part of the 
> language semantics or not (thanks to Stef for making this aspect clear 
> to me - it was clear to me that a type system should not be used to do 
> stupid things like early binding -which is what happens when you claim 
> "performance gains"- but saying that it does not affect the language 
> semantics is the clearest way of stating it). As such, it follows 
> immediately that such a type system would be optional (if it doesn't 
> affect the language semantics you might as well not use it) and that 
> there may be various type systems at the same time. In other words I 
> fully agree with Stef's term of an "optional pluggable type system".
>
>>>> From another point of view: Smalltalk's point was to teach kids, and
>>>> it seems to me it was important to make it late bound.  Therefore I
>>>> don't expect kids to understand the far reaching consequences of the
>>>> static type system you propose.
>> AR> But you are aware that eToys do have a static type system, are
>> AR> you? It seems as if kids don't have that many problems with static
>> AR> type systems as you are claiming.
>>
>> There was no eToys back in the 70s.  I thought the point of Smalltalk
>> was to let kids write Smalltalk code.
>
> Well, let me put it like this: The single largest (and repeated) 
> complaint I heard Alan make about Smalltalk-80 is that "no child has 
> ever programmed in it". That doesn't say anything about type systems 
> but it says something about the goals. For Smalltalk-80 the goal was 
> not to enable children to program in it. For eToys, it is.
>
>> While I am not familiar with the static type system in eToys, I am not
>> seeing how a static type system in eToys would be similar at all with
>> a static type system for Smalltalk code either.
>
> If you read the first paragraph (optional type system) and if you look 
> at how the type system in eToys presents itself (you don't type a 
> single extra word) it takes very little imagination to see where this 
> might be headed. StrongTalk is another worthwhile example to look at.
>
> Cheers,
>  - Andreas
>
>