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Stronger assumptions at compile time allows for higher quality code, invariants are amazing.

• klibertp 6y ago
  > invariants are amazing They are, as are pre- and post-conditions; they're not, however, a breakthrough in language design by any means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_(programming_language)
• Barrin92 6y ago
  >Stronger assumptions at compile time allows for higher quality code this depends very heavily on your definition of higher quality code. I really hate this new trend in language discussions of declaring subjective benefits to be objective. Stronger compile-time assumptions, by definition, reduce the scope of runtime dynamism, which, for many people is an important feature of say dynamic languages. Stronger assumptions at compile time are part of a trend of attempting to verify programs formally ahead of time, which is not the only way to produce robust software, but seems to be increasingly treated as such.
  • exdsq 6y ago
    What can you do with runtime dynamism that I can’t do with a language using a strong type system with dependant types? You need to know _something_ about the dynamic data else you can’t do anything with it and that starts to suggest there’s a structure you can declare, right? And what methods do you think are as capable as formal verification? What I mean by that includes formal specification, property based testing, theorem provers etc. Edit: This reads argumentative but that’s not what I wanted, I’m genuinely interested.