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I mean, if you define weak like that, then yeah. But also, what languages are you left with? Assembly? Then again, it does fit with your definition of popular b

by dminik 1y ago

I mean, if you define weak like that, then yeah. But also, what languages are you left with? Assembly? Then again, it does fit with your definition of popular being popular 45 years ago. Tbh, I'm not sure if smalltalk was ever even popular. It was certainly influential, but popular? I know that there are discussion about what strong vs weak even means, but I think most people would place the weak distinction way above yours on a possible weak-strong spectrum. C can certainly be argued to be weak. My understanding is that it's mostly due to pointers (and void* especially). C++ is much better in this regard. I mostly just did not want to add a Weak + Static category just for one language. Well, now that you've defined Strong to also include all of the languages I consider Weak, then yeah, no issues at all.

em-bee 1y ago
definitions are hard. but i am mostly concerned to make sure we are talking about the same thing, regardless of what that thing is called. i do accept and agree that javascript, php and perl may be considered weaker than python or ruby. but to which degree may be a matter of taste. to me they are still strongly typed for the most part. (and let's not get into the definition of static, that's another can of worms) but the interesting question is really the one posed at the beginning. what makes strong but dynamic a bad combination? i think we agree that weak is bad. implicit type conversions like 1+"2" range from the annoying to problematic and dangerous. if we eliminate weak that only leaves strong and static vs strong and dynamic. i agree that strong and static is better in most cases, type declarations help, and pike the language i use the most myself which is somewhere between python and go, has powerful types that are a joy to work with, but for comparison in typescript types come across as more annoying (in part because they are somewhat optional, and because they get lost at runtime, so they don't help as much as in truly typed languages) but strong and dynamic has shown to be a solid combination, especially with python and ruby. so i don't feel the combination is as bad as you seem to suggest.

by dminik 1y ago

em-bee 1y ago

definitions are hard. but i am mostly concerned to make sure we are talking about the same thing, regardless of what that thing is called. i do accept and agree that javascript, php and perl may be considered weaker than python or ruby. but to which degree may be a matter of taste. to me they are still strongly typed for the most part. (and let's not get into the definition of static, that's another can of worms) but the interesting question is really the one posed at the beginning. what makes strong but dynamic a bad combination? i think we agree that weak is bad. implicit type conversions like 1+"2" range from the annoying to problematic and dangerous. if we eliminate weak that only leaves strong and static vs strong and dynamic. i agree that strong and static is better in most cases, type declarations help, and pike the language i use the most myself which is somewhere between python and go, has powerful types that are a joy to work with, but for comparison in typescript types come across as more annoying (in part because they are somewhat optional, and because they get lost at runtime, so they don't help as much as in truly typed languages) but strong and dynamic has shown to be a solid combination, especially with python and ruby. so i don't feel the combination is as bad as you seem to suggest.