5 ms·

Having spent my entire career, 15+ years, in "weakly typed" or whatever you call it, languages, such as basic, vbScript and JavaScript I don't get this type hyp

by z3t4 9y ago

Having spent my entire career, 15+ years, in "weakly typed" or whatever you call it, languages, such as basic, vbScript and JavaScript I don't get this type hype. In "unsafe" languages that have overflows I get it will help to make it less unsafe, but in high level languages such as JavaScript why do you even need static (not sure I'm using the right vocabulary) typing !? Such as HypeScript, err I mean TypeScipt. Is there an entire field of programmers out there that get bugs because they are mixing numbers and strings !? I also did that a lot as a beginner in JavaScript as the plus sign is used both as concatenation and addition. I read a study here on HN a while ago (that probably was sponsored by $M) that stated using TypeScript would prevent most of the bugs found on GitHub, but of course there where no examples of where type annotation would have helped. So what's with this type frenzy ?

TheAsprngHacker 9y ago
If you don't make type mistakes, good for you, but why not let the compiler or interpreter provide a safety net, just in case? In addition, static typing makes refactoring easier because you can confidently redesign your code and let the implementation tell you which types you haven't yet adjusted. Besides, type inference means that you do not even have to write out the type yourself in many cases. (However, to do so is better for documentation.) Also, why do you think that Microsoft is secretly pushing static typing? /Maybe/ it's shilling for TypeScript, but there are a lot of other statically typed languages that compile to JavaScript, such as Elm.
- z3t4 9y ago
  I have nothing against type inference, static analysis, or type notation for the sake of performance optimizations. For a high level language I think it's up to the compiler to figure out the right type to use and keep things safe. And I think static typing is over-hyped as the holy grail of programming. And you can still use type annotation for documentation in a dynamic language by naming the variables such as nFoo = 1, strFoo = "foo", arrFoo = [], although I advocate just giving the variables prober names such as age = 1, name = "foo", friends = [] JavaScript is the perfect enterprise language. And that's where $M makes most of it's money. But they do not fully control JavaScript, and they have little control over NodeJS. So what do you do ? Embrace, extend, and extinguish! You add enterprise feature! That will convert users back into your ecosystem again! While at the same time trying to hurt JavaScript and NodeJS. Interestingly though Samsung recently bought NodeJS and their new devices does have JavaScript support, so hopefully NodeJS and JavaScript will not be too easy to extinguish.
seattle_spring 9y ago
How many multi-year running, 20,000+ LoC applications have you kept up to date? Or do you just start from scratch every year because it's impossible to upgrade your dependencies?
- z3t4 9y ago
  I've done my share of legacy code maintenance in $M vbScript. My main issue is not lack of static typing, but something I call importception, where you have a lot of include/imports and imports within imports with lots of global variables that change here and there. With NodeJS though all variables are local and imports (require) is scoped, which has been a huge relief.
KirinDave 9y ago
Dear z3t4, I write this letter from the distant past, late in the month of November in the distant pass of 2017. From your lofty throne upon a future so bright, I urge you to remember the sad lives we lead as a return code type mismatch caused every Mac OS X machine running modern software to be accessible by anyone with physical access by typing "root" into the login field then hammering on the Enter key like a 9 year old. Morale is high, because we know we cannot be sued for this act of gross incompetence. We have decided to solve this problem by shaking our heads at people who code in C and ignoring any similarities to our own toolkits. Please remember us and our backwards ways. Sincerely, A time traveler from about 3 days ago.
- z3t4 9y ago
  C is statically typed ... And it didn't help. So it actually helps argument my point. It's not the first time a bug sneaked by the type checker.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    It's 2017 dude. C is weakly typed with a wholly insufficient type system. We're talking about statically checked type inference systems now. A better type checker, better standards and practices, and better discipline around customer facing code are all required, but folks like you demand that every programmer must do it all by hand and then never make a mistake. It's ludicrous. This is like you saying, "Well cars are so unsafe you can't expect to live if you ride in one. Look at these pictures of horrible car wrecks. These Model Ts are death traps. But we all drove to the talk in Teslas and we're not even sure what the heck you're on about. Don't use your lack of (or refusal to obtain) familiarity with type systems and type theory as evidence of their inability to help with these problems.
- tom_mellior 9y ago
  > a return code type mismatch caused every Mac OS X machine [...] I don't doubt you, but I was just trying to read up on details of this and the internet is so full of fluff pieces that I can't find anything technical real quick. Would you have a link to a writeup of the bug behind this issue?
akeating 9y ago
The typeyness of graphql gets you documentation, validation and a way to communicate intent with fellow developers in a way that's agnostic of the language and transport used. Win, win, win, win.
johntran 9y ago
https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/09/19/to-type-or-not-to-type-quantifying-detectable-bugs-in-javascript/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/09/19/to-type-or-not-to-type-q... TL;DR: both Flow and TypeScript are pretty good, and conservatively either of them can prevent about 15% of the bugs that end up in committed code.
- z3t4 9y ago
  Thanks for finding the study! And it actually is sponsored by $M no wonder the conclusion is that using a $M product will help catch bugs.

by z3t4 9y ago

TheAsprngHacker 9y ago

If you don't make type mistakes, good for you, but why not let the compiler or interpreter provide a safety net, just in case? In addition, static typing makes refactoring easier because you can confidently redesign your code and let the implementation tell you which types you haven't yet adjusted. Besides, type inference means that you do not even have to write out the type yourself in many cases. (However, to do so is better for documentation.) Also, why do you think that Microsoft is secretly pushing static typing? /Maybe/ it's shilling for TypeScript, but there are a lot of other statically typed languages that compile to JavaScript, such as Elm.

z3t4 9y ago
I have nothing against type inference, static analysis, or type notation for the sake of performance optimizations. For a high level language I think it's up to the compiler to figure out the right type to use and keep things safe. And I think static typing is over-hyped as the holy grail of programming. And you can still use type annotation for documentation in a dynamic language by naming the variables such as nFoo = 1, strFoo = "foo", arrFoo = [], although I advocate just giving the variables prober names such as age = 1, name = "foo", friends = [] JavaScript is the perfect enterprise language. And that's where $M makes most of it's money. But they do not fully control JavaScript, and they have little control over NodeJS. So what do you do ? Embrace, extend, and extinguish! You add enterprise feature! That will convert users back into your ecosystem again! While at the same time trying to hurt JavaScript and NodeJS. Interestingly though Samsung recently bought NodeJS and their new devices does have JavaScript support, so hopefully NodeJS and JavaScript will not be too easy to extinguish.

seattle_spring 9y ago

How many multi-year running, 20,000+ LoC applications have you kept up to date? Or do you just start from scratch every year because it's impossible to upgrade your dependencies?

z3t4 9y ago
I've done my share of legacy code maintenance in $M vbScript. My main issue is not lack of static typing, but something I call importception, where you have a lot of include/imports and imports within imports with lots of global variables that change here and there. With NodeJS though all variables are local and imports (require) is scoped, which has been a huge relief.

KirinDave 9y ago

Dear z3t4, I write this letter from the distant past, late in the month of November in the distant pass of 2017. From your lofty throne upon a future so bright, I urge you to remember the sad lives we lead as a return code type mismatch caused every Mac OS X machine running modern software to be accessible by anyone with physical access by typing "root" into the login field then hammering on the Enter key like a 9 year old. Morale is high, because we know we cannot be sued for this act of gross incompetence. We have decided to solve this problem by shaking our heads at people who code in C and ignoring any similarities to our own toolkits. Please remember us and our backwards ways. Sincerely, A time traveler from about 3 days ago.

z3t4 9y ago
C is statically typed ... And it didn't help. So it actually helps argument my point. It's not the first time a bug sneaked by the type checker.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  It's 2017 dude. C is weakly typed with a wholly insufficient type system. We're talking about statically checked type inference systems now. A better type checker, better standards and practices, and better discipline around customer facing code are all required, but folks like you demand that every programmer must do it all by hand and then never make a mistake. It's ludicrous. This is like you saying, "Well cars are so unsafe you can't expect to live if you ride in one. Look at these pictures of horrible car wrecks. These Model Ts are death traps. But we all drove to the talk in Teslas and we're not even sure what the heck you're on about. Don't use your lack of (or refusal to obtain) familiarity with type systems and type theory as evidence of their inability to help with these problems.
tom_mellior 9y ago
> a return code type mismatch caused every Mac OS X machine [...] I don't doubt you, but I was just trying to read up on details of this and the internet is so full of fluff pieces that I can't find anything technical real quick. Would you have a link to a writeup of the bug behind this issue?

akeating 9y ago

The typeyness of graphql gets you documentation, validation and a way to communicate intent with fellow developers in a way that's agnostic of the language and transport used. Win, win, win, win.

johntran 9y ago

https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/09/19/to-type-or-not-to-type-quantifying-detectable-bugs-in-javascript/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/09/19/to-type-or-not-to-type-q... TL;DR: both Flow and TypeScript are pretty good, and conservatively either of them can prevent about 15% of the bugs that end up in committed code.

z3t4 9y ago
Thanks for finding the study! And it actually is sponsored by $M no wonder the conclusion is that using a $M product will help catch bugs.