4 ms·

Aren't these two equivalent statements? Liberty to do any particular thing, ever, increases the ability to do something wrong. And so requires more caution.

Aren't these two equivalent statements? Liberty to do any particular thing, ever, increases the ability to do something wrong. And so requires more caution. That doesn't stop restrictions that would alleviate said caution from being overbearing themselves. (Maybe they aren't always overbearing, either way...)

wyager 12y ago
> Liberty to do any particular thing, ever, increases the ability to do something wrong. The difference is that "liberty" tends to increase one's ability to do both right and wrong. Dynamic typing tends to only increase one's ability to do wrong.
- pdonis 12y ago
  > Dynamic typing tends to only increase one's ability to do wrong. Apparently you place no value on programmer time. Why should I have to waste time with type declarations that add no benefit to my program? Why should I have to construct an artificial type hierarchy just so I can write common code to deal with two different kinds of objects that are duck-type compatible but don't happen to share a common base type that the type system recognizes? I agree that there are certain kinds of applications where static typing can be a benefit that is worth spending the extra programmer time; but the claim you are making is much stronger than that.
  - wyager 12y ago
    Static typing can save a lot of time otherwise debugging later, and really isn't that much of a time investment.
    - pdonis 12y ago
      I agree, for certain types of applications. But as a general statement applying to all types of applications, I disagree strongly.
teacup50 12y ago
Static typing gives me the liberty to explicitly define much more complex ideas in ways that leverage the compiler to create powerful and beneficial systems that would otherwise be untenable in a language in which one could not leverage the intelligence of the type system to offset their human limitations.

wyager 12y ago

> Liberty to do any particular thing, ever, increases the ability to do something wrong. The difference is that "liberty" tends to increase one's ability to do both right and wrong. Dynamic typing tends to only increase one's ability to do wrong.

pdonis 12y ago
> Dynamic typing tends to only increase one's ability to do wrong. Apparently you place no value on programmer time. Why should I have to waste time with type declarations that add no benefit to my program? Why should I have to construct an artificial type hierarchy just so I can write common code to deal with two different kinds of objects that are duck-type compatible but don't happen to share a common base type that the type system recognizes? I agree that there are certain kinds of applications where static typing can be a benefit that is worth spending the extra programmer time; but the claim you are making is much stronger than that.
- wyager 12y ago
  Static typing can save a lot of time otherwise debugging later, and really isn't that much of a time investment.
  - pdonis 12y ago
    I agree, for certain types of applications. But as a general statement applying to all types of applications, I disagree strongly.

teacup50 12y ago

Static typing gives me the liberty to explicitly define much more complex ideas in ways that leverage the compiler to create powerful and beneficial systems that would otherwise be untenable in a language in which one could not leverage the intelligence of the type system to offset their human limitations.