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"No. I'm proposing something like what tel described elsewhere in the thread." tel's solutions are "use lenses" or "assume all keys are strings", both of which

"No. I'm proposing something like what tel described elsewhere in the thread." tel's solutions are "use lenses" or "assume all keys are strings", both of which miss the point. Yes, you can work around the limitations of a static type system, either by finding another solution (lenses) or by making functions more specific (assume all keys are strings), but that doesn't mean the limitations disappear. It just means you're working around them. In a statically typed language the solutions to a problem are constrained by the type system. The question is not whether statically typed languages are more constrained than dynamically typed languages, but whether the constraints that static typing introduces are offset by the guarantees they purchase. "That's exactly my point. Type signatures can be inferred, specs cannot." The compiler can infer some type signatures, and if you're not explicitly typing your named functions (which is generally cited as good practice), that does mean you get some checking "for free". But specs can also test more things than types; they occupy a space somewhere inbetween static types and a generative testing solution like QuickCheck. Depending on the function, a spec might be more or less verbose than the equivalent checks in a language like Haskell.

mightybyte 9y ago
> Yes, you can work around the limitations of a static type system, either by finding another solution (lenses) or by making functions more specific (assume all keys are strings), but that doesn't mean the limitations disappear. It just means you're working around them. I'm less concerned about the theoretical limitations of types that you seem to be talking about and more interested in looking at concrete real-world applications where you think you need dynamic types and seeing exactly what we can do to address them with a type system. I know there exist things that are difficult or maybe impossible to define types for (the Y combinator for instance, or possibly this assoc-in). My argument is that you don't need this power. I don't care whether difficult to type things exist, I care about whether real-world problems require them. I have yet to encounter one that I felt requires the same amount of dynamic typing power that you seem to be arguing for. See this thread for some concrete examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/792nl4/clojure_vs_the_static_typing_world_haskell_in/doyn7im/ https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/792nl4/clojure_vs_...

mightybyte 9y ago

> Yes, you can work around the limitations of a static type system, either by finding another solution (lenses) or by making functions more specific (assume all keys are strings), but that doesn't mean the limitations disappear. It just means you're working around them. I'm less concerned about the theoretical limitations of types that you seem to be talking about and more interested in looking at concrete real-world applications where you think you need dynamic types and seeing exactly what we can do to address them with a type system. I know there exist things that are difficult or maybe impossible to define types for (the Y combinator for instance, or possibly this assoc-in). My argument is that you don't need this power. I don't care whether difficult to type things exist, I care about whether real-world problems require them. I have yet to encounter one that I felt requires the same amount of dynamic typing power that you seem to be arguing for. See this thread for some concrete examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/792nl4/clojure_vs_the_static_typing_world_haskell_in/doyn7im/ https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/792nl4/clojure_vs_...