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Research doesn't support the claim that there is a strong correlation between static typing and fewer bugs. Is your opinion based on your gut feeling, or do you

by erokar 7y ago

Research doesn't support the claim that there is a strong correlation between static typing and fewer bugs. Is your opinion based on your gut feeling, or do you have data on the matter that you can provide? https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~filkov/papers/lang_github.pdf https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~filkov/papers/lang_github.pdf

dunkelheit 7y ago
The mere fact that something is "research" does not mean that it is credible. The study you reference in particular has a lot of issues: https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/science-turf-war/ https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/science-turf-wa...
- erokar 7y ago
  Of course, but research is still the best we have when it comes to support a claim or try to establish certain truths about the world. If you don't believe the results of the study, please provide the counter evidence.
  - dunkelheit 7y ago
    Measuring programmer productivity is very hard using standard research tools so they are not necessarily the best we have. This is not physics. Besides, all I wanted to do was to point out that you shouldn’t derive any conclusions from that study. I don’t need any counter evidence for that (apart from the evidence that the study is flawed of course).
  - weberc2 7y ago
    I would say experience is the best we have.
staticassertion 7y ago
Research is actually just all over the place (lots of papers come to many, many different conclusions), because it's impossible to control for various things like developer experience. Instead, common sense is actually the best substitute we have.
Reelin 7y ago
The type of bug (and related failure modes) is important though. Would you willingly board a plane if the avionics software and firmware had been written in a dynamically typed language? Alternatively, usage of Rust may not be correlated with fewer bugs overall but I'd expect there to be fewer of the use-after-free variety.
- erokar 7y ago
  I would prefer it to be written in something like Ada or Haskell, but I'd rather board a plane with avionics software written in Python than in Java. I actually heard Aribus software is written in C++. If true it should scare the shit out of anyone.
  - ksec 7y ago
    I am seeing Ada poping up a lot more lately, is Ada still being used?
  - detaro 7y ago
    As someone who enjoys Python quite a bit, I think Java has a lot of options that would be really important there that Python is lacking, like real-time support, and Python no real benefit.
  - weberc2 7y ago
    Space shuttle software is written in C, and lots of critical software is written in C++. Discipline, standards, and experience go a long way. Static verification is also nice.
weberc2 7y ago
Its based on experience and a general consensus among the most experienced developers I know. The research isn’t remotely conclusive; it’s not worth anything until they control for much, much more.

by erokar 7y ago

dunkelheit 7y ago

The mere fact that something is "research" does not mean that it is credible. The study you reference in particular has a lot of issues: https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/science-turf-war/ https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/science-turf-wa...

erokar 7y ago
Of course, but research is still the best we have when it comes to support a claim or try to establish certain truths about the world. If you don't believe the results of the study, please provide the counter evidence.
- dunkelheit 7y ago
  Measuring programmer productivity is very hard using standard research tools so they are not necessarily the best we have. This is not physics. Besides, all I wanted to do was to point out that you shouldn’t derive any conclusions from that study. I don’t need any counter evidence for that (apart from the evidence that the study is flawed of course).
- weberc2 7y ago
  I would say experience is the best we have.

staticassertion 7y ago

Research is actually just all over the place (lots of papers come to many, many different conclusions), because it's impossible to control for various things like developer experience. Instead, common sense is actually the best substitute we have.

Reelin 7y ago

The type of bug (and related failure modes) is important though. Would you willingly board a plane if the avionics software and firmware had been written in a dynamically typed language? Alternatively, usage of Rust may not be correlated with fewer bugs overall but I'd expect there to be fewer of the use-after-free variety.

erokar 7y ago
I would prefer it to be written in something like Ada or Haskell, but I'd rather board a plane with avionics software written in Python than in Java. I actually heard Aribus software is written in C++. If true it should scare the shit out of anyone.
- ksec 7y ago
  I am seeing Ada poping up a lot more lately, is Ada still being used?
- detaro 7y ago
  As someone who enjoys Python quite a bit, I think Java has a lot of options that would be really important there that Python is lacking, like real-time support, and Python no real benefit.
- weberc2 7y ago
  Space shuttle software is written in C, and lots of critical software is written in C++. Discipline, standards, and experience go a long way. Static verification is also nice.

weberc2 7y ago

Its based on experience and a general consensus among the most experienced developers I know. The research isn’t remotely conclusive; it’s not worth anything until they control for much, much more.