Actually the Java and .Net worlds are both coming to the conclusion that
dynamic typing is the future.  Both communities are learning that the cost
of maintaining all that typing information is a larger problem than the one
it solves.  Namely that type errors are just not all that common, and are
easily found with adequate testing, which is required even with static
typing.  MS has invested more than Java, but both are finding that for the
bulk of their customers doing business computing the better tradeoff is
dynamic typing.  In the book Beyond Java the author makes many good
arguments for moving away from Java for most uses.  For highly technical or
complex enterprise scale problems, the JVM is still hard to argue with given
its performance and the size of the libraries, and the raw amount of testing
with enterprise scale projects.  But, for the vast majority of projects
which are on a smaller scale, it is overkill and heading fast in the
direction of more complexity not simplicity.

Michael


> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:squeak-dev-
> bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Yanni Chiu
> Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 9:33 PM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: Re: Strongtalk VM for Squeak
> 
> Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote:
> > Strongtalk is like Self in that it has a code generator.
> 
> Thanks for clearing that up.
> 
> >>However, the strong typing aspects may be worth porting,
> >>if the additional type information can be used to speed up
> >>execution somehow.
> >
> > It has no effect on performance at all, but is still interesting for
> > other reasons.
> 
> That's somewhat surprising. So, the only thing keeping Java (the
> language) in the static typing world, is stubbornness.
> 
> It seems to me that adding strong typing (or whatever the correct
> term is) to Squeak would chip away a one more perceived "deficiency",
> and win some political points in the "language wars". That should
> end the arguments: we've got both.