>From: "Michael Latta" <lattam at mac.com>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>To: "'The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list'"<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Subject: RE: Strongtalk VM for Squeak
>Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 22:08:43 -0700
>
>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.

Early in my software career I was strongly in the static typing camp.  A big
reason for this was, the only representative of the dynamic typing camp I 
was
familiar with was perl.  So naturally I saw dynamic typing as a synonym for 
run slow,
etc., etc..

Now that I have had time to get exposed to languages designed with actual 
thought
(or CS educated thought, if you prefer) I have to say I agree that the 
static typing
causes more trouble then it is helping.  It is just a specific case of a 
more general
situation:  testing.

It is better to have all the tests in one place, instead of some delegated 
to the compiler
as in a staticly typed language.  Especially since the preprogrammed 
compiler tests do not
apply in some cases, forcing the language to design new syntax to get around 
it and the
user to use this syntax to fight with the compiler.

So my vote would be that instead of trying to get static type support into 
squeak we focus
on the real issue:  education.  If users get exposed to a well designed 
lanugage then the
bad press about not being statically typed will be exposed as being wrong.