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> You have the Python type system, and while it's inferior to TypeScript's in many ways, it's far more ubiquitous than Ruby's Sorbet. I'm a big fan of Ruby, bu

by troad 2y ago

> You have the Python type system, and while it's inferior to TypeScript's in many ways, it's far more ubiquitous than Ruby's Sorbet. I'm a big fan of Ruby, but God I wish it had good, in-line type hinting. Sorbet annotations are too noisy and the whole thing feels very awkwardly bolted on, while RBS' use of external files make it a non-starter.

lloeki 2y ago
I for one really like RBS being external files, it keeps the Ruby side of things uncluttered. When I do need types inline I believe it is the editor's job to show them dynamically, e.g via facilities like tooltips, autocompletion, or vim inlay hints and virtual text, which can apply to much more than just signatures near method definitions. Types are much more useful where the code is used than where it is defined. I follow a 1:1 lib/.rb - sig/.rbs convention and have projection+ files to jump from one to the other instantly. And since the syntax of RBS is so close to Ruby I found myself accidentally writing things type-first then using that as a template to write the actual code. Of note, if you crawl soutaro's repo (author of steep) you'll find a prototype of inline RBS. + used by vim projectionist and vscode projection extension
sankha93 2y ago
Do you mean Ruby lacks syntactic support for adding type annotations inline in your programs? I am one of the authors of RDL (https://github.com/tupl-tufts/rdl https://github.com/tupl-tufts/rdl) a research project that looked at type systems for Ruby before it became mainstream. We went for strings that looked nice, but were parsed into a type signature. Sorbet, on the other hand, uses Ruby values in a DSL to define types. We were of the impression that many of our core ideas were absorbed by other projects and Sorbet and RBS has pretty much mainstream. What is missing to get usable gradual types in Ruby?
- pmontra 2y ago
  None of my customers ever asked for type definitions in Ruby (nor in Python.) I'm pretty happy of the choice of hiding types under the carpet of a separate file. I think they made it deliberately because Ruby's core team didn't like type definitions but had to cave to the recent fashion. It will swing back but I think that this is a slow pendulum. Talking about myself I picked Ruby 20 years ago exactly because I didn't have to type types so I'm not a fan of the projects you are working at, but I don't even oppose them. I just wish I'm never forced to define types.
- troad 2y ago
  My point isn't technical per se, my point is more about the UX of actually trying to use gradual typing in a flesh and blood Ruby project. Sorbet type annotations are noisy, verbose, and are much less easy to parse at a glance than an equivalent typesig in other languages. Sorbet itself feels... hefty. Incorporating Sorbet in an existing project seems like a substantial investment. RBS files are nuts from a DRY perspective, and generating them from e.g. RDoc is a second rate experience. More broadly, the extensive use of runtime metaprogramming in Ruby gems severely limits static analysis in practice, and there seems to be a strong cultural resistance to gradual typing even where it would be possible and make sense, which I would - at least in part - attribute to the cumbersome UX of RBS/Sorbet, cf. something like Python's gradual typing. Gradual typing isn't technically impossible in Ruby, it just feels... unwelcome.

by troad 2y ago

lloeki 2y ago

I for one really like RBS being external files, it keeps the Ruby side of things uncluttered. When I do need types inline I believe it is the editor's job to show them dynamically, e.g via facilities like tooltips, autocompletion, or vim inlay hints and virtual text, which can apply to much more than just signatures near method definitions. Types are much more useful where the code is used than where it is defined. I follow a 1:1 lib/.rb - sig/.rbs convention and have projection+ files to jump from one to the other instantly. And since the syntax of RBS is so close to Ruby I found myself accidentally writing things type-first then using that as a template to write the actual code. Of note, if you crawl soutaro's repo (author of steep) you'll find a prototype of inline RBS. + used by vim projectionist and vscode projection extension

sankha93 2y ago

Do you mean Ruby lacks syntactic support for adding type annotations inline in your programs? I am one of the authors of RDL (https://github.com/tupl-tufts/rdl https://github.com/tupl-tufts/rdl) a research project that looked at type systems for Ruby before it became mainstream. We went for strings that looked nice, but were parsed into a type signature. Sorbet, on the other hand, uses Ruby values in a DSL to define types. We were of the impression that many of our core ideas were absorbed by other projects and Sorbet and RBS has pretty much mainstream. What is missing to get usable gradual types in Ruby?

pmontra 2y ago
None of my customers ever asked for type definitions in Ruby (nor in Python.) I'm pretty happy of the choice of hiding types under the carpet of a separate file. I think they made it deliberately because Ruby's core team didn't like type definitions but had to cave to the recent fashion. It will swing back but I think that this is a slow pendulum. Talking about myself I picked Ruby 20 years ago exactly because I didn't have to type types so I'm not a fan of the projects you are working at, but I don't even oppose them. I just wish I'm never forced to define types.
troad 2y ago
My point isn't technical per se, my point is more about the UX of actually trying to use gradual typing in a flesh and blood Ruby project. Sorbet type annotations are noisy, verbose, and are much less easy to parse at a glance than an equivalent typesig in other languages. Sorbet itself feels... hefty. Incorporating Sorbet in an existing project seems like a substantial investment. RBS files are nuts from a DRY perspective, and generating them from e.g. RDoc is a second rate experience. More broadly, the extensive use of runtime metaprogramming in Ruby gems severely limits static analysis in practice, and there seems to be a strong cultural resistance to gradual typing even where it would be possible and make sense, which I would - at least in part - attribute to the cumbersome UX of RBS/Sorbet, cf. something like Python's gradual typing. Gradual typing isn't technically impossible in Ruby, it just feels... unwelcome.