3 ms·
> What I have found static typing to be really useful for is in remembering what I have coded. It's quite hard to remember a dynamic type while you are writing
by throwawaymath 8y ago
> What I have found static typing to be really useful for is in remembering what I have coded. It's quite hard to remember a dynamic type while you are writing code, given the number of variables you are dealing with. Seeing that type definition next to your variable name is a handy reference.
If you consider this a benefit, then (for example with Python), don't you get the same benefit just by using docstrings? Stated another way, if all you want is a visual cue about what you're passing to a function and getting returned, why bother with all the scaffolding of type safety? You can get that just by using documentation facilities outlined in various languages' style guides. Those language facilities (such as docstrings) tend to be very useful and a good engineering practice in general.
The point of type safety is actually to obviate what you're talking about. Smart developers can and do make the mistakes you're saying only a moron would make, regardless of available visual cues. Offloading that decision making process to a language that complains when you make that mistake instead of being forgiving about it is entirely the point.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm struggling to understand why you think type safety is BS. If I read you correctly, it sounds like you'd also say that developers committing memory corruption vulnerabilities are morons, and that the scaffolding of memory management and garbage collection is BS. Why not just have explicit references a developer can read while coding to make sure they're not overflowing a container, right?