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When thinking about extending and refactoring, you also need to keep in mind that static types add a whole layer which is pretty hard to change. There are advan

When thinking about extending and refactoring, you also need to keep in mind that static types add a whole layer which is pretty hard to change. There are advantages and disadvantages, having at static types isn't such a silver bullet.

jlg23 7y ago
The solutions to these problems in "extending and refactoring" are the same in dynamically and statically typed languages because in both you have to make sure functions/methods get the correctly typed input and return some expected type as output. In both worlds you will either refactor everything, abstract the problem away with interfaces or union types or you'll do type conversions at the boundaries of the code you touch. That layer is there anyway, except for your interpreter of a dynamic language only knows about problems at run-time, while the compiler that checks a static type system will tell you at compile-time.
Lorkki 7y ago
So do all the implicit assumptions in duck-typed code, but following them relies fully on the programmer's own caution. You can of course add explicit checks and tests, eventually paying the same amount (or more) in LOC as the typed implementation's initial cost, but then you're also tasked to keep those up to date, without the compiler's aid.
wokwokwok 7y ago
Hm... well that might be true for extending, I'm not sure you've fully thought through that comment. Duck types are great for writing new code, but they're very troublesome for refactoring; automated tools have a much harder time automating that process. Refactoring data structures and implementations in static type systems is bother considerably easier to implement than in dynamic languages, and resultingly, more robust. Certainly the refactoring tooling these days is pretty sophisticated with type inference, but... well, I've refactoring large python and javascript code bases, and my experience has been that absolutely a static type system makes that process easier, even if you have a comprehensive test suite. I think it's worth acknowledging that there is a place for static type systems; certainly, it's not a silver bullet, and it results in (usually) a higher lines-of-code count, which is significant; but its naive and wrong to suggest that it has no value at all. Specifically, for refactoring, it has a lot of value.
- pdimitar 7y ago
  To be fair, in languages as terse as OCaml, even the bigger line count isn't a given.

jlg23 7y ago

The solutions to these problems in "extending and refactoring" are the same in dynamically and statically typed languages because in both you have to make sure functions/methods get the correctly typed input and return some expected type as output. In both worlds you will either refactor everything, abstract the problem away with interfaces or union types or you'll do type conversions at the boundaries of the code you touch. That layer is there anyway, except for your interpreter of a dynamic language only knows about problems at run-time, while the compiler that checks a static type system will tell you at compile-time.

Lorkki 7y ago

So do all the implicit assumptions in duck-typed code, but following them relies fully on the programmer's own caution. You can of course add explicit checks and tests, eventually paying the same amount (or more) in LOC as the typed implementation's initial cost, but then you're also tasked to keep those up to date, without the compiler's aid.

wokwokwok 7y ago

Hm... well that might be true for extending, I'm not sure you've fully thought through that comment. Duck types are great for writing new code, but they're very troublesome for refactoring; automated tools have a much harder time automating that process. Refactoring data structures and implementations in static type systems is bother considerably easier to implement than in dynamic languages, and resultingly, more robust. Certainly the refactoring tooling these days is pretty sophisticated with type inference, but... well, I've refactoring large python and javascript code bases, and my experience has been that absolutely a static type system makes that process easier, even if you have a comprehensive test suite. I think it's worth acknowledging that there is a place for static type systems; certainly, it's not a silver bullet, and it results in (usually) a higher lines-of-code count, which is significant; but its naive and wrong to suggest that it has no value at all. Specifically, for refactoring, it has a lot of value.

pdimitar 7y ago
To be fair, in languages as terse as OCaml, even the bigger line count isn't a given.