5 ms·

Reading code like that makes me want to puke. So, he wants to increase productivity by making us think about and write theorems in addition to our normal code (

Reading code like that makes me want to puke. So, he wants to increase productivity by making us think about and write theorems in addition to our normal code (don't underestimate the time you invest in this), making our code even more static and less reusable in the hope that the reduction in time for bug hunting and testing will make up for the time invested in thinking about and creating more complex code? Hard to believe. Do those language designers create this stuff to show off how intelligent they are or just for the sake of having fun or are they seriously trying to make development easier? I can't imagine building a website with this. But then again, maybe those languages are designed for satellites, space shuttles, and simulations (i.e. where correctness is far more important than productivity)? Well, I think most of us have to make a compromise between productivity and correctness. It's the same as having 100% code coverage. Nice in theory, but it makes refactorings and development too costly and still doesn't guarantee that your software is 100% correct. Here's a nice post if you still believe 100% code coverage is the ultimate #1 goal of your project: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cashto/archive/2009/03/31/it-s-ok-not-to-write-unit-tests.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cashto/archive/2009/03/31/it-s-ok-no...

aaronblohowiak 16y ago
aggree with most of what you said. As a matter of finesse, I think that the correctness vs productivity argument is a specious one when it comes to language design. If correctness is a business requirement then providing language support is a productivity booster for the team (when you consider the timelines of the verification process as part of the development time.) you alluded to different problem domains perhaps requiring formal proof, I just want to suggest that it may decrease the iteration time for the team as a whole.
- voxcogitatio 16y ago
  There is also the matter that the whole "correctness vs. productivity" debate is a false opposite. There is nothing mutually contradictive with correctness and productivity, so there is no reason why you can't have both.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    Correctness stems from expressing not only the algorithm but also the results you expect from running it (as types and/or test cases) so they can be verified. But if you somehow convince yourself that you haven't made any mistakes, it's always less work to just write the algorithm (and omit the expected results).
silentbicycle 16y ago
I think most of the programming advantages from static typing come from the basics (when done well), rather than the high-end research project type system stuff. A language with inferred (H-M-ish) static types and a good module system will give you reality checks from the compiler, you won't have to write frigging null checks everywhere, and it will avoid the visual clutter and rewriting tedious annotations as code changes. It's probably not as exciting as research, though. The whole static / dynamic typing thing is its own flamewar waiting to happen, so I'm going to leave it at that.
loup-vaillant 16y ago
A web site with no bug (I mean, no error) is a web site with no vulnerabilities. Wouldn't that be interesting when your customers trust you with their credit card number?
- wkornewald 16y ago
  Of course I want to have secure code. However, do I have to write 100% of my code in such a verbose language in order to guarantee security? I don't think that any security expert would claim that. It's sufficient if the relevant parts of the system and the communication protocols between your components provide a secure foundation. Writing all of your code in a verbose language would be total overkill and a huge waste of effort. So, in the end a combination of both systems might be the solution. The issue here is that this news post is about "the language of the future". It's definitely far from the language of the future. If at all, it might be a small component of the language(s) of the future (and even for that it should better improve on readability). There's just too much research going into verifiable systems and language theory and by far not enough research into making the majority of our code more expressive and reusable from a very practical point of view.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    I didn't see significant examples of Omega, but… I'd be surprised if a language with a Haskell-like syntax is verbose. The verbosity most likely didn't come from the language itself, but from the proofs. Once you've built the foundations, and proven a host of invariants about them, then you don't need to prove much more when you write the rest of the program. I bet Omega supports the very programming model you advocate: invulnerable foundations, and quickly written "rest of the program". If the code you saw was verbose, that's probably because it was foundation code. (After all, standard data structures are par of the foundations.)
- Groxx 16y ago
  You're implying all vulnerabilities are bugs due to coding error. To take a high-profile recent case: this would do nothing to prevent padding oracle attacks. Or future crypto attacks using techniques unknown to us now. Why? Because the encryption is working as it should. As advertised. As proven. Or imagine you used Rot13 for encryption. Your DB could hold people's credit cards in clear-text; how will this language prevent that from happening? Your website has no authorization tools, so you can access others' data by simply going to their URL; this is still a provably-correct logic structure.

aaronblohowiak 16y ago

aggree with most of what you said. As a matter of finesse, I think that the correctness vs productivity argument is a specious one when it comes to language design. If correctness is a business requirement then providing language support is a productivity booster for the team (when you consider the timelines of the verification process as part of the development time.) you alluded to different problem domains perhaps requiring formal proof, I just want to suggest that it may decrease the iteration time for the team as a whole.

voxcogitatio 16y ago
There is also the matter that the whole "correctness vs. productivity" debate is a false opposite. There is nothing mutually contradictive with correctness and productivity, so there is no reason why you can't have both.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  Correctness stems from expressing not only the algorithm but also the results you expect from running it (as types and/or test cases) so they can be verified. But if you somehow convince yourself that you haven't made any mistakes, it's always less work to just write the algorithm (and omit the expected results).

silentbicycle 16y ago

I think most of the programming advantages from static typing come from the basics (when done well), rather than the high-end research project type system stuff. A language with inferred (H-M-ish) static types and a good module system will give you reality checks from the compiler, you won't have to write frigging null checks everywhere, and it will avoid the visual clutter and rewriting tedious annotations as code changes. It's probably not as exciting as research, though. The whole static / dynamic typing thing is its own flamewar waiting to happen, so I'm going to leave it at that.

loup-vaillant 16y ago

A web site with no bug (I mean, no error) is a web site with no vulnerabilities. Wouldn't that be interesting when your customers trust you with their credit card number?

wkornewald 16y ago
Of course I want to have secure code. However, do I have to write 100% of my code in such a verbose language in order to guarantee security? I don't think that any security expert would claim that. It's sufficient if the relevant parts of the system and the communication protocols between your components provide a secure foundation. Writing all of your code in a verbose language would be total overkill and a huge waste of effort. So, in the end a combination of both systems might be the solution. The issue here is that this news post is about "the language of the future". It's definitely far from the language of the future. If at all, it might be a small component of the language(s) of the future (and even for that it should better improve on readability). There's just too much research going into verifiable systems and language theory and by far not enough research into making the majority of our code more expressive and reusable from a very practical point of view.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  I didn't see significant examples of Omega, but… I'd be surprised if a language with a Haskell-like syntax is verbose. The verbosity most likely didn't come from the language itself, but from the proofs. Once you've built the foundations, and proven a host of invariants about them, then you don't need to prove much more when you write the rest of the program. I bet Omega supports the very programming model you advocate: invulnerable foundations, and quickly written "rest of the program". If the code you saw was verbose, that's probably because it was foundation code. (After all, standard data structures are par of the foundations.)
Groxx 16y ago
You're implying all vulnerabilities are bugs due to coding error. To take a high-profile recent case: this would do nothing to prevent padding oracle attacks. Or future crypto attacks using techniques unknown to us now. Why? Because the encryption is working as it should. As advertised. As proven. Or imagine you used Rot13 for encryption. Your DB could hold people's credit cards in clear-text; how will this language prevent that from happening? Your website has no authorization tools, so you can access others' data by simply going to their URL; this is still a provably-correct logic structure.