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I feel like it probably isn’t worthwhile to litigate the merits of static typing every time there is a HN post that’s vaguely adjacent to the topic. For the am

I feel like it probably isn’t worthwhile to litigate the merits of static typing every time there is a HN post that’s vaguely adjacent to the topic. For the amount people care about it, there isn’t much evidence in either direction. And most studies that do exist are limited to small programs typically written by novices. Yale’s Singapore campus are going to be running two instances of the same course in parallel soon, one in python and one in ocaml. Perhaps that will provide a datapoint about learning the languages but maybe there will just be a lot of selection bias or library or environment or teacher differences. And how easy it is to learn a language probably isn’t the main datapoint to care about anyway.

Guthur 6y ago
It would if python actually encouraged runtime coding. In my opinion dynamic programmers need to embrace the runtime environment and use it as part of their development methodology. Unfortunately most popular dynamic languages have woeful runtime environments.
- sfg 6y ago
  So, Common Lisp and Smalltalk? Any others?
  - Guthur 6y ago
    I'd imagine some Scheme environments are good as well, like Dr Racket. Unfortunately the same amount of effort that has been applied to static type checking has not been applied to dynamic language environments. It would have been very interesting to see what could be possible with the more advancement.
  - cjallen88 6y ago
    Factor for sure
- andrekandre 6y ago
  yep, i was going to say the same thing, the biggest issue with dynamic vs static is maybe people are missing the point: dynamic languages (like smalltalk) were designed for live coding where the results are immediate, when that is broken and coding is done in a "dead" environment of course dynamic typing will cause problems that arent caught until runtime... but the original idea was one shouldnt have had to wait until runtime in the first place!
ernst_klim 6y ago
> there isn’t much evidence in either direction Oh, I think there are great evidences, such as: dialyzer, or ruby3 and python3 shifting towards type signatures everywhere and gradual typing, or recent racket focus on typed racket. Oh, and the rise of typescript of course. I mean, I've abandoned Python years ago, and I was quite surprised when I discovered python people are adding type annotations everywhere. Sure, gradual typing is not a strictly enforced as in statically typed languages, but seems people are agree that modularity and abstraction without type signatures is painful in sufficiently large programs.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  What you have described is an anecdote rather than any study that attempts to be impartial which is what I really meant when I wrote ‘evidence.’ I’m sorry for not being clear enough. I don’t feel like this anecdote is evidence because I don’t think it’s inconsistent with the trend towards more static types over the last 5-10 years or so. For this anecdote to be convincing I would need to think that programming language design happens because of carefully thought out and researched decisions and quick feedback as good languages are used and bad languages are dropped, but I don’t believe this.
  - ernst_klim 6y ago
    This is not an anecdote by definition, since these languages represents quite a huge marketshare (and most of the rest langs are already statically typed). Yes, this is not a sound rigid empirical proof, it's an observation (i.e. unlike the case of anecdotal, you can measure the marketshare of user, how many do use dialyzer or typescript, etc etc). We can't simply ignore any observations that are not scientifically rigid, otherwise the whole edifice of philosophy or even some natural sciences should simply perish. I don't think you can just omit that. I'm a fan of Lakatos here, if I have some observation, I think one need at least as convincing evidence or more rigid one to prove otherwise. > because of carefully thought out and researched decisions I think it's a better evidence exactly because it's what language users are asking about, and what large chunk of language users choose to use when they got a choice. This shows that quite a big share if not majority of programmers value type annotations.

Guthur 6y ago

It would if python actually encouraged runtime coding. In my opinion dynamic programmers need to embrace the runtime environment and use it as part of their development methodology. Unfortunately most popular dynamic languages have woeful runtime environments.

sfg 6y ago
So, Common Lisp and Smalltalk? Any others?
- Guthur 6y ago
  I'd imagine some Scheme environments are good as well, like Dr Racket. Unfortunately the same amount of effort that has been applied to static type checking has not been applied to dynamic language environments. It would have been very interesting to see what could be possible with the more advancement.
- cjallen88 6y ago
  Factor for sure
andrekandre 6y ago
yep, i was going to say the same thing, the biggest issue with dynamic vs static is maybe people are missing the point: dynamic languages (like smalltalk) were designed for live coding where the results are immediate, when that is broken and coding is done in a "dead" environment of course dynamic typing will cause problems that arent caught until runtime... but the original idea was one shouldnt have had to wait until runtime in the first place!

ernst_klim 6y ago

> there isn’t much evidence in either direction Oh, I think there are great evidences, such as: dialyzer, or ruby3 and python3 shifting towards type signatures everywhere and gradual typing, or recent racket focus on typed racket. Oh, and the rise of typescript of course. I mean, I've abandoned Python years ago, and I was quite surprised when I discovered python people are adding type annotations everywhere. Sure, gradual typing is not a strictly enforced as in statically typed languages, but seems people are agree that modularity and abstraction without type signatures is painful in sufficiently large programs.

dan-robertson 6y ago
What you have described is an anecdote rather than any study that attempts to be impartial which is what I really meant when I wrote ‘evidence.’ I’m sorry for not being clear enough. I don’t feel like this anecdote is evidence because I don’t think it’s inconsistent with the trend towards more static types over the last 5-10 years or so. For this anecdote to be convincing I would need to think that programming language design happens because of carefully thought out and researched decisions and quick feedback as good languages are used and bad languages are dropped, but I don’t believe this.
- ernst_klim 6y ago
  This is not an anecdote by definition, since these languages represents quite a huge marketshare (and most of the rest langs are already statically typed). Yes, this is not a sound rigid empirical proof, it's an observation (i.e. unlike the case of anecdotal, you can measure the marketshare of user, how many do use dialyzer or typescript, etc etc). We can't simply ignore any observations that are not scientifically rigid, otherwise the whole edifice of philosophy or even some natural sciences should simply perish. I don't think you can just omit that. I'm a fan of Lakatos here, if I have some observation, I think one need at least as convincing evidence or more rigid one to prove otherwise. > because of carefully thought out and researched decisions I think it's a better evidence exactly because it's what language users are asking about, and what large chunk of language users choose to use when they got a choice. This shows that quite a big share if not majority of programmers value type annotations.