3 ms·

"Types", sounds like someone doesn't understand dynamic languages, which are some of the most popular languages today.

eyelidlessness 10y ago
Sadly, all of my professional work to date has been in dynamic languages. They still have types, and `null` is still not `"null"`. Edit: whoops, forgot the one time I wrote a one-off Mac app in Swift.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  I was kinda sorta being sarcastic, though that kind of thing is a big problem in dynamic languages. Javascript has the concept of "truthy" values of ... whatever rather than a simple boolean type. Realistically this particular problem is not due to dynamic languages per se. Most likely it's due to some stage of a process where data was serialized/deserialized without sufficient care. In general it's more of an "in band signaling" problem.
eyelidlessness 10y ago
To be more clear than my previous response, I am well aware that dynamically typed languages do all sorts of nonsense, but nearly none of them consider this `null` to equal `"null"`, certainly not the widely popular ones. Side note: please refrain from "sounds like someone doesn't understand". It is extremely condescending, dissuades discussion by most people whether they actually know the topic or not, and can be especially deflating to people who are less educated but currently learning. If there is something that you feel I misunderstood about the way popular languages treat the string `"null"`, feel free to explain it (there are many other response comments I've gotten that are good examples). But if the purpose of your comment is to make me or anyone else feel ignorant, please just keep it to yourself.
- borski 10y ago
  I strongly believe parent was being sarcastic.
  - eyelidlessness 10y ago
    Ugh, on re-reading, very probably. I'm suser sensitive to this stuff with all the "inclusion is a joke" nonsense going around today, and probably overreacted to jest. Apologies if so.

Sadly, all of my professional work to date has been in dynamic languages. They still have types, and `null` is still not `"null"`. Edit: whoops, forgot the one time I wrote a one-off Mac app in Swift.

InclinedPlane 10y ago
I was kinda sorta being sarcastic, though that kind of thing is a big problem in dynamic languages. Javascript has the concept of "truthy" values of ... whatever rather than a simple boolean type. Realistically this particular problem is not due to dynamic languages per se. Most likely it's due to some stage of a process where data was serialized/deserialized without sufficient care. In general it's more of an "in band signaling" problem.

eyelidlessness 10y ago

To be more clear than my previous response, I am well aware that dynamically typed languages do all sorts of nonsense, but nearly none of them consider this `null` to equal `"null"`, certainly not the widely popular ones. Side note: please refrain from "sounds like someone doesn't understand". It is extremely condescending, dissuades discussion by most people whether they actually know the topic or not, and can be especially deflating to people who are less educated but currently learning. If there is something that you feel I misunderstood about the way popular languages treat the string `"null"`, feel free to explain it (there are many other response comments I've gotten that are good examples). But if the purpose of your comment is to make me or anyone else feel ignorant, please just keep it to yourself.

borski 10y ago
I strongly believe parent was being sarcastic.
- eyelidlessness 10y ago
  Ugh, on re-reading, very probably. I'm suser sensitive to this stuff with all the "inclusion is a joke" nonsense going around today, and probably overreacted to jest. Apologies if so.