> Nothing is free in engineering. To get something, you have to give up something I think this is a dangerous position to take to extremes/as an axiom. Not ta

> Nothing is free in engineering. To get something, you have to give up something I think this is a dangerous position to take to extremes/as an axiom. Not talking about type systems at all here. The assumption that, given two tools/techniques for accomplishing the same goal, there are always equivalent tradeoffs simply isn't true. Some tools are better than others. That statement usually provokes misinterpretation. It should not be taken to mean: - That some tools are always better than others, in every context. There are situations in 2022 where COBOL is the best choice for new code, and other situations where rewrite-it-in-Rust is the best choice. Problems occur when "tradeoffs of tool A (even if we don't know what they are yet) make it equivalent to tool B" is a core tenet of decision making. - That some tools always have been and/or always will be better than others. Context, expectations, tool capabilities, and available programmer talent pools all change massively over time. - That one tool is better than all the others. Plenty of times there are multiple ways to deliver optimal-given-constraints outcomes, and it comes down to a matter of taste or "just pick something, anything, and let us get to work". Chasing hype and cargo culting leads to poor outcomes; "we should build our two-core app on Kubernetes/write our 2TPS app in Rust" are often justified with "because it's the future" or "because the cool kids are doing it". That's a major bummer. But the opposite extreme is just as bad: assuming that all choices are fundamentally a wash because "to get something, you have to give up something else" is just as methodologically irresponsible as following the hype cycle. Programming isn't alchemy. This kind of bad decisionmaking can lead to dependence on obsolete (unsupported/insecure) tools, difficulty hiring, and, at worst, a culture of "don't talk about Python to me; if you can't freehand it in C you just need to get gud" gatekeeping cruelty. Everything has tradeoffs. That doesn't mean they're equivalent.