5 ms·

> I don't think the OP would claim TypeScript is a bad idea Confirmed. TBH there are very few languages that I'd claim were a bad idea. The point I'm making i

> I don't think the OP would claim TypeScript is a bad idea Confirmed. TBH there are very few languages that I'd claim were a bad idea. The point I'm making is not "Statically typed languages are a bad idea" it's "If you think statically typed languages are going to make software correctness magically better then you're going to be disappointed".

tome 10y ago
You did actually claim that statically typed languages were worse than dynamically typed ones for correctness: > My general experience of the correctness software written in fancy statically typed languages is not overwhelmingly positive compared to that of software written in dynamic languages. If anything it trends slightly negative.
- DRMacIver 10y ago
  I might not say that the use of any language is a bad idea, but I'm definitely going to say that basing a language choice on a general and uncertain impression derived from my extremely limited, biased and anecdotal sampling as an end user is a terrible idea :-p ETA: The point of that anecdotal impression was not "This is definitely true" but "Given that this is my general experience it would be surprising if the actual trade offs experienced in practice were such that static typing was regularly a clear winner", which I feel much happier supporting on an impression than "You should do this".
mcepl 10y ago
Well, I would say that some types like "eight-bit character in ISO-8859-1 encoding" is a monumentally stupid idea in this day and age (and yes, I live in 8859-2 area, but that isn't the point … http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html).
- Someone 10y ago
  I would have written PETSCII, EBCDIC or shift-JIS instead, but feared few users would understand it. Not everybody writes new stuff; some software has to interface with stuff written decades ago. Also, even for software 100% written today it often is impossible to stay in a world where all strings use compatible encodings. Examples where you need conversions: when connecting systems that support different Unicode versions or when generating http headers, windows file names, or QR codes. I guess many 'older' systems will not handle ZIP or tar files that use UTF-8 for file names in the archive, either.

tome 10y ago

You did actually claim that statically typed languages were worse than dynamically typed ones for correctness: > My general experience of the correctness software written in fancy statically typed languages is not overwhelmingly positive compared to that of software written in dynamic languages. If anything it trends slightly negative.

DRMacIver 10y ago
I might not say that the use of any language is a bad idea, but I'm definitely going to say that basing a language choice on a general and uncertain impression derived from my extremely limited, biased and anecdotal sampling as an end user is a terrible idea :-p ETA: The point of that anecdotal impression was not "This is definitely true" but "Given that this is my general experience it would be surprising if the actual trade offs experienced in practice were such that static typing was regularly a clear winner", which I feel much happier supporting on an impression than "You should do this".

mcepl 10y ago

Well, I would say that some types like "eight-bit character in ISO-8859-1 encoding" is a monumentally stupid idea in this day and age (and yes, I live in 8859-2 area, but that isn't the point … http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html).

Someone 10y ago
I would have written PETSCII, EBCDIC or shift-JIS instead, but feared few users would understand it. Not everybody writes new stuff; some software has to interface with stuff written decades ago. Also, even for software 100% written today it often is impossible to stay in a world where all strings use compatible encodings. Examples where you need conversions: when connecting systems that support different Unicode versions or when generating http headers, windows file names, or QR codes. I guess many 'older' systems will not handle ZIP or tar files that use UTF-8 for file names in the archive, either.