5 ms·

(any of the other stuff mentioned) .. ensure correctness The post says that. Dot-completion in your IDE is not enough either, nor is it something particularly

by fogus 14y ago

(any of the other stuff mentioned) .. ensure correctness The post says that. Dot-completion in your IDE is not enough either, nor is it something particularly unique to static languages.

roryokane 14y ago
> The post says that. I think the grandparent knew that, and was just repeating what you said to contrast it with his following statement about what static typing is good for. And dot-completion is not completely unique to static languages, but I would say it is “particularly unique” – it is more common for static languages. And that’s not just coincidence – it is generally easier to write a tool like dot-completion for a static language than a dynamic language, because dot-completion involves static analysis of the code.
- derefr 14y ago
  > dot-completion involves static analysis of the code. Dot-completion involves having a living model of the program loaded in memory. You can do this with any language--static languages just partition the program model such that you get a certain phase of interpretation (compilation) past which you have a completed model of all of the code, without yet having seen any of the data. On the other hand, you can easily dot-complete method calls in a dynamic language's REPL--because there, at runtime, is when and where a dynamic language forms a complete model of the program it can use to do such things. Now, the real question is why we're still programming dynamic languages in text-editors instead of treating them as congealments of transactionally-replayable interactive REPL transcripts. (Are there any modern examples of programming in this style, anyway? I can only think of ancient ones: Emacs Lisp, Squeak Smalltalk, and the "immediate-command-line" of some Telnet-based simulated-world MOOs.)
  - carsongross 14y ago
    I code in both ruby (with a repl in the IDE) and java (with a traditional statically typed IDE). There are times I wish I had a repl in java (I typically use debugging in a test to fake it) but I'd give my left cortex for reliable code completion in ruby. There's no reason we can't have both. It just takes a reasonable terse statically typed language like C# or, dare I say... gosu.
    - jshen 14y ago
      Have you tried pry for ruby?
  - prodigal_erik 14y ago
    When you create a method which takes an argument in a dynamic language, there's no declaration of the type of that argument or which methods it will be known to support. So how does dot-completion work for any target other than "this"? The REPL isn't doing whole-program dataflow analysis to infer the only type(s) which could possibly be passed, is it?
    - jules 14y ago
      FYI, PyTools for Visual Studio does dataflow analysis for intellisense.
carsongross 14y ago
Reliable dot completion without some batshit insane state-dependent VM-as-a-dev-env-or-constantly-running-tests system is... well, let's just say made much easier with static typing. I really could give a shit about what people think is "enough" (IMO, keeping stuff simple, as in simplicity of implementation, as in worse-is-better, is the only answer) I just want to hit dot and have a pretty good idea what I'm allowed to do. And static typing, in practice, appears to help there. But hey, man, I'm not advocating you use it.
- fogus 14y ago
  But hey, man, I'm not advocating you use it. I'd be crazy to give up dot completion. I like it as much as the next guy. ;-)
- jshen 14y ago
  Pry for ruby gives me great dot completion and isn't batshit insane. Most diehard dynamic typists live in their repl. When I use java with IntelliJ I miss my repl. I do gain some things from the IDE, but I feel hamstrung compared to my repl.
  - carsongross 14y ago
    I'll give pry a try, but I've tried a lot of dynamic IDE environments and none have come close to IJ w/ statically typed langs.
    - jshen 14y ago
      Minus the part about t only working well for java and having to write your code in java ;) I also use rubymine for ruby development and it gives me a lot of the IntelliJ stuff, but it doesn't always work. I.e cmd-b to jump to the method definition.
  - carsongross 14y ago
    Ah, fk man, another REPL? I don't want a repl for editing. I want to write code in a friggen editor and have dot completion work. I also want a repl for trying stuff out and debugging/light weight testing, but that's a different use case for me.

by fogus 14y ago

(any of the other stuff mentioned) .. ensure correctness The post says that. Dot-completion in your IDE is not enough either, nor is it something particularly unique to static languages.

roryokane 14y ago

> The post says that. I think the grandparent knew that, and was just repeating what you said to contrast it with his following statement about what static typing is good for. And dot-completion is not completely unique to static languages, but I would say it is “particularly unique” – it is more common for static languages. And that’s not just coincidence – it is generally easier to write a tool like dot-completion for a static language than a dynamic language, because dot-completion involves static analysis of the code.

derefr 14y ago
> dot-completion involves static analysis of the code. Dot-completion involves having a living model of the program loaded in memory. You can do this with any language--static languages just partition the program model such that you get a certain phase of interpretation (compilation) past which you have a completed model of all of the code, without yet having seen any of the data. On the other hand, you can easily dot-complete method calls in a dynamic language's REPL--because there, at runtime, is when and where a dynamic language forms a complete model of the program it can use to do such things. Now, the real question is why we're still programming dynamic languages in text-editors instead of treating them as congealments of transactionally-replayable interactive REPL transcripts. (Are there any modern examples of programming in this style, anyway? I can only think of ancient ones: Emacs Lisp, Squeak Smalltalk, and the "immediate-command-line" of some Telnet-based simulated-world MOOs.)
- carsongross 14y ago
  I code in both ruby (with a repl in the IDE) and java (with a traditional statically typed IDE). There are times I wish I had a repl in java (I typically use debugging in a test to fake it) but I'd give my left cortex for reliable code completion in ruby. There's no reason we can't have both. It just takes a reasonable terse statically typed language like C# or, dare I say... gosu.
  - jshen 14y ago
    Have you tried pry for ruby?
- prodigal_erik 14y ago
  When you create a method which takes an argument in a dynamic language, there's no declaration of the type of that argument or which methods it will be known to support. So how does dot-completion work for any target other than "this"? The REPL isn't doing whole-program dataflow analysis to infer the only type(s) which could possibly be passed, is it?
  - jules 14y ago
    FYI, PyTools for Visual Studio does dataflow analysis for intellisense.

carsongross 14y ago

Reliable dot completion without some batshit insane state-dependent VM-as-a-dev-env-or-constantly-running-tests system is... well, let's just say made much easier with static typing. I really could give a shit about what people think is "enough" (IMO, keeping stuff simple, as in simplicity of implementation, as in worse-is-better, is the only answer) I just want to hit dot and have a pretty good idea what I'm allowed to do. And static typing, in practice, appears to help there. But hey, man, I'm not advocating you use it.

fogus 14y ago
But hey, man, I'm not advocating you use it. I'd be crazy to give up dot completion. I like it as much as the next guy. ;-)
jshen 14y ago
Pry for ruby gives me great dot completion and isn't batshit insane. Most diehard dynamic typists live in their repl. When I use java with IntelliJ I miss my repl. I do gain some things from the IDE, but I feel hamstrung compared to my repl.
- carsongross 14y ago
  I'll give pry a try, but I've tried a lot of dynamic IDE environments and none have come close to IJ w/ statically typed langs.
  - jshen 14y ago
    Minus the part about t only working well for java and having to write your code in java ;) I also use rubymine for ruby development and it gives me a lot of the IntelliJ stuff, but it doesn't always work. I.e cmd-b to jump to the method definition.
- carsongross 14y ago
  Ah, fk man, another REPL? I don't want a repl for editing. I want to write code in a friggen editor and have dot completion work. I also want a repl for trying stuff out and debugging/light weight testing, but that's a different use case for me.