6 ms·

Most of the oldies I know prefer static typing. A lot of the new people use dynamic types because that's all they know.

vishnugupta 8y ago
This. I'm an oldie and I prefer static typing. Heck, I can't even get my head around dynamically typed languages. And for any non-trivial production level software I strongly believe the choice of programming language has no bearing on the productivity. I.e., a team of Java experts will be as much productive in a Java stack as a team of python experts in a Python stack. A big reason for the recent shift towards dynamic languages, in my opinion, is what's taught in college now a days. I believe it's mostly Python or the likes. In my college days (late 1990s) it was all statically typed languages (Fortran, Cobol, C, Pascal etc.,). So that's how my generation ended up learning to model a problem and solution in statically typed languages and natural preference towards them.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I agree. People obsess about the choice of programming language, insisting that months of study are needed to choose. I just don't see it except for very specialized tools or applications. That said, I find maintaining an old, large application written in an untyped language pretty miserable.
  - i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
    I've had equal misery both typed and untyped on large, old, legacy stuff. Maybe programming just sucks.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      At least you don't have to read the method to figure out the input and output types. And the IDE can help you much more. I find these things big when trying to modify some massive codebase I don't know inside and out.
maxxxxx 8y ago
Only until they have to refactor an older codebase of some size...
- RandomInteger4 8y ago
  They who? Old or new?
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    "A lot of the new people"
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      But that's only if they also got some experience working with static typing. Without that, they won't see the difference in difficulty, as they have no reference to compare to.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        Feeling the pain would already be a good start :-). With a lot of Javascript projects being very short term a lot of people never get the experience of maintaining a code base for years.
    - RandomInteger4 8y ago
      Ah, thank you for disambiguating the pronoun 'they' whose reference wasn't clear as you provided no antecedent. EDIT: Heh, kind of ironic really. A pronoun without an antecedent is like a variable in a dynamic programming language whose context isn't clear.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        I guess I am a dynamic writer but a strongly typed programmer :-)
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
travisoneill1 8y ago
True. I started coding a couple years ago and used a static typed language for the first time a couple months ago. Definitely don't want to go back.
aidenn0 8y ago
Care to define "old"? I'm 38, and the programmers I know that are older than me don't seem to have a significantly different spread compared to younger (excluding 1-language programmers in both cases). Maybe a bit less python and a bit more of one of: perl/awk/apl/smalltalk but still they seem to choose untyped languages over typed languages when they are unconstrained to pick the language.

This. I'm an oldie and I prefer static typing. Heck, I can't even get my head around dynamically typed languages. And for any non-trivial production level software I strongly believe the choice of programming language has no bearing on the productivity. I.e., a team of Java experts will be as much productive in a Java stack as a team of python experts in a Python stack. A big reason for the recent shift towards dynamic languages, in my opinion, is what's taught in college now a days. I believe it's mostly Python or the likes. In my college days (late 1990s) it was all statically typed languages (Fortran, Cobol, C, Pascal etc.,). So that's how my generation ended up learning to model a problem and solution in statically typed languages and natural preference towards them.

emodendroket 8y ago
I agree. People obsess about the choice of programming language, insisting that months of study are needed to choose. I just don't see it except for very specialized tools or applications. That said, I find maintaining an old, large application written in an untyped language pretty miserable.
- i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
  I've had equal misery both typed and untyped on large, old, legacy stuff. Maybe programming just sucks.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    At least you don't have to read the method to figure out the input and output types. And the IDE can help you much more. I find these things big when trying to modify some massive codebase I don't know inside and out.

maxxxxx 8y ago

Only until they have to refactor an older codebase of some size...

RandomInteger4 8y ago
They who? Old or new?
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "A lot of the new people"
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    But that's only if they also got some experience working with static typing. Without that, they won't see the difference in difficulty, as they have no reference to compare to.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      Feeling the pain would already be a good start :-). With a lot of Javascript projects being very short term a lot of people never get the experience of maintaining a code base for years.
  - RandomInteger4 8y ago
    Ah, thank you for disambiguating the pronoun 'they' whose reference wasn't clear as you provided no antecedent. EDIT: Heh, kind of ironic really. A pronoun without an antecedent is like a variable in a dynamic programming language whose context isn't clear.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      I guess I am a dynamic writer but a strongly typed programmer :-)
fjsolwmv 8y ago

travisoneill1 8y ago

True. I started coding a couple years ago and used a static typed language for the first time a couple months ago. Definitely don't want to go back.

aidenn0 8y ago

Care to define "old"? I'm 38, and the programmers I know that are older than me don't seem to have a significantly different spread compared to younger (excluding 1-language programmers in both cases). Maybe a bit less python and a bit more of one of: perl/awk/apl/smalltalk but still they seem to choose untyped languages over typed languages when they are unconstrained to pick the language.