3 ms·

I know, right? When did obvious things become hype and "need literature"? Type bugs are an obvious thing and happen all the time. Not hype, but an obvious fact

by brink 3y ago

I know, right? When did obvious things become hype and "need literature"? Type bugs are an obvious thing and happen all the time. Not hype, but an obvious fact: "Static Typing reduces type related bugs."

the_gastropod 3y ago
I think the important question is: at what cost? E.g., if it takes me 4x more time to write statically-typed code, and it saves me 10% fewer bugs (completely made up numbers here), is that worthwhile? Maybe, if I'm programming self-driving cars or autopilot software for aircraft. Probably not if I'm programming a web calendar for dog sitters.
- brink 3y ago
  I don't consider it an added cost, you're just moving the cost upfront to reduce long-term pain. Ruby apps are easy to build, but are difficult to maintain. Rust apps take a bit more effort to build, but are easier to maintain.
  - the_gastropod 3y ago
    But this is where the studies come in. Lots of people think this is true. And it seems perfectly reasonable. But there's really no research to back this up.
    - worik 3y ago
      Can this be confirmed or refuted? There is so much variation confounding any study, in tasks, specifications, programmer inclination. I use both staticly typed (rust) and dynamically typed (perl) a lot. I like rust for the big projects and perl to hold everything together-job control That is my inclination, not a fact. I have used many languages over the years. Static/dynamic typing is just one dimension, and not necessarily related to quality
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      And with most of the type-related stuff it's slightly worse than "no research to back this up". There is research, and it doesn't back this up. Except for the documentation effect. For that there is apparently solid research.
- mpweiher 3y ago
  It's even worse than that. If it saves me 10% bugs per unit of code, but I have to write 20% more code, am I actually even ahead in the bugs department?
- wharvle 3y ago
  If you work with other people or will ever onboard someone to the project (including your future self) static types save time. Lots of it.
bryik 3y ago
If "type bugs are an obvious thing and happen all the time" and "static Typing reduces type related bugs" then it should be easy to demonstrate this empirically. However, "a review of all the available literature (up to 2014), show[s] that the solid research is inconclusive while the conclusive research had methodological issues."
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- _gabe_ 3y ago
  Why would you need an empirical study for this? It’s trivially provable. Runtime exceptions in a language like JavaScript can arise from type mismatches. That’s impossible to do in a language like Java, because the compiler catches it before you ever run the program. This eliminates an entire class of bugs. What you’re proposing here sounds like somebody saying “How do we know Rust results in less bugs than C++ without an empirical study?”. Even though, we _know_ Rust eliminates an entire class of memory related bugs. I say this as a C++ advocate too. Anytime I run into a memory bug, that’s a bug that would not have happened in Rust. Likewise, any time you run into a runtime exception due to a type mismatch (for example: expected an int not an object), that is a bug that would not have happened with a type safe language. Edit: I also want to add that the metric is important. Is it number of bugs per line of code? What does that even mean? Assembly programs consist of many more lines of code because it’s more terse, but the number of bugs in assembly will probably be greater than a higher level language. Even though the large number of lines of code would probably push the metric down and make it seem like assembly has a low number of bugs per line of code. Because of this, bugs per line of code isn’t a useful metric. The only way I could think of measuring this would be to have two feature for feature equivalent projects in two different languages and compare the number of bugs in each. But even that probably has a bunch of flaws.
  - bryik 3y ago
    I think you're right that static typing reduces bugs, but I am not convinced the reduction is significant or meaningful. If static typing has a significant effect, then why is the existing research so weak and inconclusive? I don't understand your point about metrics and measurement. Are you saying the effect of static typing is so small that it is completely dominated by other confounding factors and thus cannot be measured?

by brink 3y ago

the_gastropod 3y ago

I think the important question is: at what cost? E.g., if it takes me 4x more time to write statically-typed code, and it saves me 10% fewer bugs (completely made up numbers here), is that worthwhile? Maybe, if I'm programming self-driving cars or autopilot software for aircraft. Probably not if I'm programming a web calendar for dog sitters.

brink 3y ago
I don't consider it an added cost, you're just moving the cost upfront to reduce long-term pain. Ruby apps are easy to build, but are difficult to maintain. Rust apps take a bit more effort to build, but are easier to maintain.
- the_gastropod 3y ago
  But this is where the studies come in. Lots of people think this is true. And it seems perfectly reasonable. But there's really no research to back this up.
  - worik 3y ago
    Can this be confirmed or refuted? There is so much variation confounding any study, in tasks, specifications, programmer inclination. I use both staticly typed (rust) and dynamically typed (perl) a lot. I like rust for the big projects and perl to hold everything together-job control That is my inclination, not a fact. I have used many languages over the years. Static/dynamic typing is just one dimension, and not necessarily related to quality
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    And with most of the type-related stuff it's slightly worse than "no research to back this up". There is research, and it doesn't back this up. Except for the documentation effect. For that there is apparently solid research.
mpweiher 3y ago
It's even worse than that. If it saves me 10% bugs per unit of code, but I have to write 20% more code, am I actually even ahead in the bugs department?
wharvle 3y ago
If you work with other people or will ever onboard someone to the project (including your future self) static types save time. Lots of it.

bryik 3y ago

If "type bugs are an obvious thing and happen all the time" and "static Typing reduces type related bugs" then it should be easy to demonstrate this empirically. However, "a review of all the available literature (up to 2014), show[s] that the solid research is inconclusive while the conclusive research had methodological issues."

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
_gabe_ 3y ago
Why would you need an empirical study for this? It’s trivially provable. Runtime exceptions in a language like JavaScript can arise from type mismatches. That’s impossible to do in a language like Java, because the compiler catches it before you ever run the program. This eliminates an entire class of bugs. What you’re proposing here sounds like somebody saying “How do we know Rust results in less bugs than C++ without an empirical study?”. Even though, we _know_ Rust eliminates an entire class of memory related bugs. I say this as a C++ advocate too. Anytime I run into a memory bug, that’s a bug that would not have happened in Rust. Likewise, any time you run into a runtime exception due to a type mismatch (for example: expected an int not an object), that is a bug that would not have happened with a type safe language. Edit: I also want to add that the metric is important. Is it number of bugs per line of code? What does that even mean? Assembly programs consist of many more lines of code because it’s more terse, but the number of bugs in assembly will probably be greater than a higher level language. Even though the large number of lines of code would probably push the metric down and make it seem like assembly has a low number of bugs per line of code. Because of this, bugs per line of code isn’t a useful metric. The only way I could think of measuring this would be to have two feature for feature equivalent projects in two different languages and compare the number of bugs in each. But even that probably has a bunch of flaws.
- bryik 3y ago
  I think you're right that static typing reduces bugs, but I am not convinced the reduction is significant or meaningful. If static typing has a significant effect, then why is the existing research so weak and inconclusive? I don't understand your point about metrics and measurement. Are you saying the effect of static typing is so small that it is completely dominated by other confounding factors and thus cannot be measured?