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> I'm a beginner with functional languages, but isn't the type system completely orthogonal to the fact that Elm is a functional language? You're completely co
by johnfn 9y ago
> I'm a beginner with functional languages, but isn't the type system completely orthogonal to the fact that Elm is a functional language?
You're completely correct, though for whatever reason functional languages almost always have strong type systems.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoWith the huge exception being Lisp-based languages (closure, scheme, etc....). Heck, Lisp was the first functional language and first one that made full use of dynamic typing.
- LeonidasXIV 9y agoThere is also Erlang and Elixir which while functional aren't typed. There are some static analysis tools though.
- nickjj 9y agoI'm just getting into Elixir now but even without it being statically typed, it does catch a ton of errors and present warnings at compile time. It's remarkably useful so far. I feel like I have an extra level of protection compared to Ruby or Python.
- MaxBarraclough 9y agoErlang is dynamically typed. It's certainly not untyped - it's assembly and Forth that are untyped.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoDynamic typing (like static typing) is a spectrum, actually. You can flag method missing errors at a minimum, but in a nominally dynamically typed system, you could flag class mismatches before you ever got to a dispatch error.
- MaxBarraclough 9y agoSure, I didn't say it wasn't. My point was that 'untyped' should not be conflated with 'dynamically typed'. They're worlds apart.