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> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy.

> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. Hi, highly experienced, multi-lingual developer here (Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, Java, Go, C#, F#, OCaml, Elixir/Erlang, ReasonML, SQL, Smalltalk, Objective-C, Swift, leaving off quite a few prior Web 2.0 ones for brevity) nice to meet you. As you can see, I've done just about all of it: every paradigm, every syntax. It all honestly blurs together after a certain point, and it just becomes easier and easier to pick up a new language the more you learn. Anyways, these days, I never reach for a dynamic language when I need to deliver something quick and easy. The difference is just too marginal. Not worth the downsides (and the downsides are immense!). Because, as my experience has taught me, invariably one of those quick and easy ones will turn into something that becomes business critical, lives on for years after you are gone, and will be much more difficult for other, typically more junior, developers to update or enhance your code. Static typing is not only marginally less productive these days with all the great tools and IDE's out there (not to mention Go which has one of the least obtrusive static type checkers I've seen, or, even better if the org allows you, a language with a HM type system), but for a marginal improvement in productivity, you pay a heavy long term cost. Not worth it. Dynamic languages are great for rapid prototypes. After that, convert it to a static language. Your junior devs that join after you, who aren't familiar with the entire ecosystem your work has will thank you.

barrkel 5y ago
If I'm prototyping something like a log file analyzer or web scraper I use a dynamic language because it gives me a debugger REPL. I can interactively develop code with immediate results and copy & paste straight from the terminal into the editor. When I want to develop further, I put a debugger statement right where I want to pick up, where all the data is available, and develop from execution. Some static languages have REPLs but few are as good as dynamic languages for mutating existing code in the middle of a debugging session. If you don't write much code which involves exploration of data or unknown APIs, then this mode of development may not be as useful to you, but it's a significant productivity advantage for me and the reason I reach for a dynamic language. Ruby is my go-to, with binding.pry as my debugger REPL.
saila 5y ago
> After that, convert it to a static language I don't think you can have a hard and fast rule like this. It will depend on the situation. In many instances, a "prototype" built in Python or similar is perfectly fine. In addition, one can make a horrendous mess in statically typed languages as well. One of the absolute worst projects I ever worked on was written in a popular statically typed language. This is of course an anecdote and not to say statically typed languages are worse, but they're not automatically better either. Just a note too that I'm a big fan of, e.g., Rust & TypeScript, and I often use type hints in Python, so I'm not anti-static typing.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Way easier to refactor a that statically typed mess. There is a floor for how bad you can write static typed code. There is no floor to how bad of JavaScript or Python or Ruby you can write. The madness can descend to the inner most circles of coding hell. Only Perl exceeds it.
Jcampuzano2 5y ago
Well which one do you tend to reach for then? Purely out of curiosity.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Go in the general case, Java if complex domain modeling is required (or requires "enterprise grade" B.S - SOAP, WSDLs, or other crazy XML specified madness like Adobe extension stuff, etc), and after that: anything functional if I am allowed. Explained: Go's type system is generally less rigid. It strikes a good balance of strict enough. A lot of Go's converts aren't from "systems" languages like it targeted originally, but rather former Python/Ruby/PHP/JavaScript backend devs. I love the performance and low level levers I can pull with Go (although to be fair Java is quite fast enough). But finally, Go is easy to learn (26 language keywords?), the standard library is mostly great, and the worst developers I've seen still write mostly maintainable code that builds fast, which is what I optimize the most for these days. Java, for all its warts and legacy cruft, these days you can write fairly good java, utilizing modern libraries. I love most things from Codahale, who in turn I think pushed orgs like Spring to write better libraries, so now everything's pretty good. Plus all the legacy stuff comes in handy when you have to deal with arcane government or financial systems, something I have to interface with frequently. But if I had my choice, I'd use something where you can express functional programming concepts intuitively, without fighting the language or having to do it at a heavy performance cost, like Rust or better yet, just a full fledged FP language like OCaml (whom I understand heavily inspired Rust)

barrkel 5y ago

If I'm prototyping something like a log file analyzer or web scraper I use a dynamic language because it gives me a debugger REPL. I can interactively develop code with immediate results and copy & paste straight from the terminal into the editor. When I want to develop further, I put a debugger statement right where I want to pick up, where all the data is available, and develop from execution. Some static languages have REPLs but few are as good as dynamic languages for mutating existing code in the middle of a debugging session. If you don't write much code which involves exploration of data or unknown APIs, then this mode of development may not be as useful to you, but it's a significant productivity advantage for me and the reason I reach for a dynamic language. Ruby is my go-to, with binding.pry as my debugger REPL.

saila 5y ago

> After that, convert it to a static language I don't think you can have a hard and fast rule like this. It will depend on the situation. In many instances, a "prototype" built in Python or similar is perfectly fine. In addition, one can make a horrendous mess in statically typed languages as well. One of the absolute worst projects I ever worked on was written in a popular statically typed language. This is of course an anecdote and not to say statically typed languages are worse, but they're not automatically better either. Just a note too that I'm a big fan of, e.g., Rust & TypeScript, and I often use type hints in Python, so I'm not anti-static typing.

dimitrios1 5y ago
Way easier to refactor a that statically typed mess. There is a floor for how bad you can write static typed code. There is no floor to how bad of JavaScript or Python or Ruby you can write. The madness can descend to the inner most circles of coding hell. Only Perl exceeds it.

Jcampuzano2 5y ago

Well which one do you tend to reach for then? Purely out of curiosity.

dimitrios1 5y ago
Go in the general case, Java if complex domain modeling is required (or requires "enterprise grade" B.S - SOAP, WSDLs, or other crazy XML specified madness like Adobe extension stuff, etc), and after that: anything functional if I am allowed. Explained: Go's type system is generally less rigid. It strikes a good balance of strict enough. A lot of Go's converts aren't from "systems" languages like it targeted originally, but rather former Python/Ruby/PHP/JavaScript backend devs. I love the performance and low level levers I can pull with Go (although to be fair Java is quite fast enough). But finally, Go is easy to learn (26 language keywords?), the standard library is mostly great, and the worst developers I've seen still write mostly maintainable code that builds fast, which is what I optimize the most for these days. Java, for all its warts and legacy cruft, these days you can write fairly good java, utilizing modern libraries. I love most things from Codahale, who in turn I think pushed orgs like Spring to write better libraries, so now everything's pretty good. Plus all the legacy stuff comes in handy when you have to deal with arcane government or financial systems, something I have to interface with frequently. But if I had my choice, I'd use something where you can express functional programming concepts intuitively, without fighting the language or having to do it at a heavy performance cost, like Rust or better yet, just a full fledged FP language like OCaml (whom I understand heavily inspired Rust)