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Just out of interest, are you skeptical of static type systems in general? Because AFAIK there has never been a quantitative study proving their effectiveness,

by willtim 10y ago

Just out of interest, are you skeptical of static type systems in general? Because AFAIK there has never been a quantitative study proving their effectiveness, only empirical studies.

sheepmullet 10y ago
There is a lot of evidence that "primitive" static type systems add value via enabling better tooling. Low cost of adoption + clear minor tooling benefits is usually enough evidence to adopt Java/C# style static types. Haskell style static typing has a very high cost of adoption and so must conclusively show a strong benefit in order to be adopted by industry. At the moment I feel Haskell companies can get away with using Haskell because PL enthusiasts are willing to absorb the training costs.
pron 10y ago
I am not skeptical of type systems in general and TBH I've never worked on a large piece of software written in an untyped language (I often program in Clojure, but so far never a large system -- and yeah, I am skeptical about Clojure too even though I love it). But you're mistaken if you think I'm looking for quantitative studies; that's far too high a bar. I am looking for well-researched anecdotes, and there are plenty of them for type systems in general. I am, however, very skeptical of the interpretation some people, especially in typed FP, give to types and the reasons they believe types provide a benefit. For example, the relationship between useful type systems and software correctness is not direct. I am currently using a formal verification tool that is completely logic based (and it has an interactive theorem prover, a model checker, and is backed by decades of careful mathematical analysis of its soundness) which is completely untyped, and yet it is as powerful as Coq for proving correctness of algorithms. If direct, formal, proofs of correctness is what you're after, types might not be the best solution. Types, however, have other clear benefits that are not related to formal correctness, or, at least, not correctness of global program properties.

by willtim 10y ago

Just out of interest, are you skeptical of static type systems in general? Because AFAIK there has never been a quantitative study proving their effectiveness, only empirical studies.

sheepmullet 10y ago

There is a lot of evidence that "primitive" static type systems add value via enabling better tooling. Low cost of adoption + clear minor tooling benefits is usually enough evidence to adopt Java/C# style static types. Haskell style static typing has a very high cost of adoption and so must conclusively show a strong benefit in order to be adopted by industry. At the moment I feel Haskell companies can get away with using Haskell because PL enthusiasts are willing to absorb the training costs.

pron 10y ago

I am not skeptical of type systems in general and TBH I've never worked on a large piece of software written in an untyped language (I often program in Clojure, but so far never a large system -- and yeah, I am skeptical about Clojure too even though I love it). But you're mistaken if you think I'm looking for quantitative studies; that's far too high a bar. I am looking for well-researched anecdotes, and there are plenty of them for type systems in general. I am, however, very skeptical of the interpretation some people, especially in typed FP, give to types and the reasons they believe types provide a benefit. For example, the relationship between useful type systems and software correctness is not direct. I am currently using a formal verification tool that is completely logic based (and it has an interactive theorem prover, a model checker, and is backed by decades of careful mathematical analysis of its soundness) which is completely untyped, and yet it is as powerful as Coq for proving correctness of algorithms. If direct, formal, proofs of correctness is what you're after, types might not be the best solution. Types, however, have other clear benefits that are not related to formal correctness, or, at least, not correctness of global program properties.