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That's if you prefer tools like Visual Studio to tools like Squeak. That is, if you prefer your tools to perform static analysis as opposed to allowing you to

• skrebbel 14y ago
  That's a fair point which I don't know how to counter well, mostly because I know virtually nothing about the Smalltalks of this world. That said, how can you refactor your code while it's running? Also, is dynamic typing a requirement to get tools like Squeak to work? Or could it work equally well in statically typed languages?
  • tree_of_item 14y ago
    A small example of refactoring running code is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuoS796vNw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuoS796vNw And a more lengthy example of writing tests first, letting the code fail, and fixing things in the debugger: http://vimeo.com/19591202 http://vimeo.com/19591202 This is kind of like writing code that doesn't exist or doesn't work, and letting the type checker guide you through the things you need to fill in. The difference is that Smalltalk is actually executing your code, so you can see actual values rather than just type errors, and it will keep trying to execute your code while you change things. It might be possible to do something like that with static typing, but I think the real issue is that most advocates of static typing wouldn't really _want_ to mess around with programs in inconsistent states in the first place.