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What’s your take on Hickey’s talk titled “Maybe Not” which fundamentally criticizes static types? Is there a middle ground where some form of static typing make

What’s your take on Hickey’s talk titled “Maybe Not” which fundamentally criticizes static types? Is there a middle ground where some form of static typing makes sense in a Clojure-esque world? https://youtu.be/YR5WdGrpoug?si=4mI8doBX6jj6PJkk https://youtu.be/YR5WdGrpoug?si=4mI8doBX6jj6PJkk

Jeaye 1y ago
Rich has many great ideas and he founded Clojure. I respect him deeply. On typing, however, we do not agree entirely. For a practical example of a Clojure-like language with a completely static type system (with affine typing), see Carp. https://github.com/carp-lang/Carp https://github.com/carp-lang/Carp I don't see why there can't be a Carp mode in jank, with bridges in place to connect the Clojurey world from the Carpy world. This would allow jank users to develop interactively to start with, figure out their shapes, use the REPL, etc. Then, if they want, they can lock down some parts of the code for both performance and correctness gains.
- narnarpapadaddy 1y ago
  FWIW, (I have one Clojure project I inherited at work that my team maintains) I love this direction.
frogulis 1y ago
Been a while since I've watched/read it, but I remember the ideas in Maybe Not being quite interesting. To me, the really important idea wasn't a criticism of static types in general. Instead it was the idea that static typing in most (all?) mainstream implementations conflates concepts that should be separate, specifically the shape of the information that we have (e.g. what fields of what types), and whether a particular bit of information is available and required (e.g. nullability). He contends that the former belongs in our usual "type definition", whereas the latter relates instead to a given context. For example, my PassportForm type always has a date-of-birth field in its _shape_, but whether it's statically required/present to exist depends on whether we're at a HTTP API boundary, an internal domain function boundary, writing into a database. It sounded like that kind of "nullability masking" was intended as a feature of Spec, but I don't get the impression it was ever implemented.
- didibus 1y ago
  I think they were ideas being experimented for Spec2, but I think that's a bit on a hiatus.
drob518 1y ago
I don’t think Rich was criticizing static types as much as saying that they aren’t giving you as much benefit as you think they are and that they complicate program evolution over time.
- ljm 1y ago
  I don't think static types (or lack thereof) complicate (or simplify) program evolution over time, bad architecture does.
- alternatex 1y ago
  Still quite the hot take.
  - drob518 1y ago
    Indeed.
- lenkite 1y ago
  They might not give much execution benefit and they may indeed complicate program evolution, but they DO aid readability, document-ability and refactoring!
KingMob 1y ago
Heh. Hickey once debated with me at length about visual neuroscience, a subject I have a master's degree in and he doesn't. At no point did this stop him from confidently asserting things. I have to wonder if "Maybe Not" is similar, since he's not actually an expert in types, either afaik. Alexis King wrote a partial rebuttal to Maybe Not: https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2020/01/19/no-dynamic-type-systems-are-not-inherently-more-open/ https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2020/01/19/no-dynamic-typ...
- roenxi 1y ago
  I'd personally say typing or not is a style choice, but your criticism here seems to be that Hickey doesn't have a visual neuroscience Master's degree which seems a bit arbitrary. If your argument is you are an expert but Hickey is not, criticising him on his language design skills seems like a logical mistake. He's one of the foremost language designers of the current era. "Maybe Not" is a speech by an expert talking in his field of expertise. If your argument is that his confidence is unfounded, again, he's an expert talking in his area. He can reasonably take a confident attitude in that, even if he has unfounded confidence in other fields he isn't an expert in. Lots of experts do that, it is a well founded stereotype of smart people. He doesn't need to be an expert in implementing types to judge whether they are a good language feature.
  - spjt 1y ago
    Being an expert in type theory or language design is not particularly relevant either. The most relevant expert would be the lowly maintenance developer.
  - KingMob 1y ago
    The point of my story that you're missing is that Hickey's confidence in giving a talk shouldn't be confused with knowing what he's talking about. > "Maybe Not" is a speech by an expert talking in his field of expertise. Writing a dynamically-typed language does not mean he's an expert in types. > He doesn't need to be an expert in implementing types to judge whether they are a good language feature. Hah! Love it. Asimov: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
fithisux 1y ago
If you need confidence in the operation of a function you make code testable. If you need it to execute in Repl you need to make code Replable and I am not joking.
rkangel 1y ago
I need to watch this video, but I'd argue that the debate is over on typing. You can make all the theoretical ideas you want, but JS and Python have added typing, it has been received enthusiastically and it has been beneficial. Real world results out rank any philosophical views. That doesn't mean they're appropriate for all programming languages (it is nice in Python when knocking up a quick and dirty script to not bother with types) but for general purpose languages, types add too much value.

Jeaye 1y ago

Rich has many great ideas and he founded Clojure. I respect him deeply. On typing, however, we do not agree entirely. For a practical example of a Clojure-like language with a completely static type system (with affine typing), see Carp. https://github.com/carp-lang/Carp https://github.com/carp-lang/Carp I don't see why there can't be a Carp mode in jank, with bridges in place to connect the Clojurey world from the Carpy world. This would allow jank users to develop interactively to start with, figure out their shapes, use the REPL, etc. Then, if they want, they can lock down some parts of the code for both performance and correctness gains.

narnarpapadaddy 1y ago
FWIW, (I have one Clojure project I inherited at work that my team maintains) I love this direction.

frogulis 1y ago

Been a while since I've watched/read it, but I remember the ideas in Maybe Not being quite interesting. To me, the really important idea wasn't a criticism of static types in general. Instead it was the idea that static typing in most (all?) mainstream implementations conflates concepts that should be separate, specifically the shape of the information that we have (e.g. what fields of what types), and whether a particular bit of information is available and required (e.g. nullability). He contends that the former belongs in our usual "type definition", whereas the latter relates instead to a given context. For example, my PassportForm type always has a date-of-birth field in its _shape_, but whether it's statically required/present to exist depends on whether we're at a HTTP API boundary, an internal domain function boundary, writing into a database. It sounded like that kind of "nullability masking" was intended as a feature of Spec, but I don't get the impression it was ever implemented.

didibus 1y ago
I think they were ideas being experimented for Spec2, but I think that's a bit on a hiatus.

drob518 1y ago

I don’t think Rich was criticizing static types as much as saying that they aren’t giving you as much benefit as you think they are and that they complicate program evolution over time.

ljm 1y ago
I don't think static types (or lack thereof) complicate (or simplify) program evolution over time, bad architecture does.
alternatex 1y ago
Still quite the hot take.
- drob518 1y ago
  Indeed.
lenkite 1y ago
They might not give much execution benefit and they may indeed complicate program evolution, but they DO aid readability, document-ability and refactoring!

KingMob 1y ago

Heh. Hickey once debated with me at length about visual neuroscience, a subject I have a master's degree in and he doesn't. At no point did this stop him from confidently asserting things. I have to wonder if "Maybe Not" is similar, since he's not actually an expert in types, either afaik. Alexis King wrote a partial rebuttal to Maybe Not: https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2020/01/19/no-dynamic-type-systems-are-not-inherently-more-open/ https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2020/01/19/no-dynamic-typ...

roenxi 1y ago
I'd personally say typing or not is a style choice, but your criticism here seems to be that Hickey doesn't have a visual neuroscience Master's degree which seems a bit arbitrary. If your argument is you are an expert but Hickey is not, criticising him on his language design skills seems like a logical mistake. He's one of the foremost language designers of the current era. "Maybe Not" is a speech by an expert talking in his field of expertise. If your argument is that his confidence is unfounded, again, he's an expert talking in his area. He can reasonably take a confident attitude in that, even if he has unfounded confidence in other fields he isn't an expert in. Lots of experts do that, it is a well founded stereotype of smart people. He doesn't need to be an expert in implementing types to judge whether they are a good language feature.
- spjt 1y ago
  Being an expert in type theory or language design is not particularly relevant either. The most relevant expert would be the lowly maintenance developer.
- KingMob 1y ago
  The point of my story that you're missing is that Hickey's confidence in giving a talk shouldn't be confused with knowing what he's talking about. > "Maybe Not" is a speech by an expert talking in his field of expertise. Writing a dynamically-typed language does not mean he's an expert in types. > He doesn't need to be an expert in implementing types to judge whether they are a good language feature. Hah! Love it. Asimov: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

fithisux 1y ago

If you need confidence in the operation of a function you make code testable. If you need it to execute in Repl you need to make code Replable and I am not joking.

rkangel 1y ago

I need to watch this video, but I'd argue that the debate is over on typing. You can make all the theoretical ideas you want, but JS and Python have added typing, it has been received enthusiastically and it has been beneficial. Real world results out rank any philosophical views. That doesn't mean they're appropriate for all programming languages (it is nice in Python when knocking up a quick and dirty script to not bother with types) but for general purpose languages, types add too much value.