I completely agree.

But note that the name is Wuyts, not Wutz :-)

On 04 Jul 2006, at 16:45, Lex Spoon wrote:

> Info on my type inference work is here:
>
>   http://www.lexspoon.org/ti
>
>
> This includes documentation and a demo image that you can download and
> play with.  You can also install my inferencer from SqueakSource, but
> I have not tested it with anything newer than Squeak 3.7.
>
> The main selling point of my inferencer is that it has a serious
> attempt at being sound.  I worked out a formal semantics of Smalltalk,
> and my analyzer generates correct results (upper bounds on the types)
> so long as you stay within the assumptions of the system.
>
> Garau's inferencer includes an unrealistic assumption that you do not
> have aliases, i.e. that you never have two different variables
> pointing to the same object.  Wutz's SOUL-based inferencer is very
> fast but is based entirely on heuristics.
>
> I'd guess you would want to use Wutz's inferencer for browsers in
> contexts where you do not *really* need the result to be correct, and
> mine in curcumstances where an error in the inferencer is more costly.
>
>
> To return to the initial query, Damien is discussing the initial state
> of the heap.  By default my inferencer assumes an initially empty
> heap--or equivalently, that the code you ask about does not use things
> in the initial heap.  Often this is enough.  For other cases, you
> would have to have the system consider the initial heap in some
> fashion.  This is possible with my inferencer--look through the
> methods of class Inferencer--but I have not worked with it much and so
> it is immature.
>
>
> Finally, there are limits to how far any analyzer can go.  For
> example, no system can allow the programmer to add and remove
> arbitrary methods and classes as the program runs.  All (sound) static
> analyzers make some assumptions about the program and then find out
> what is possible given those assumptions.
>
>
> -Lex
>
>
>