8 ms·

"Because there is basically no type system that fights against you, you are unrestricted in what you can do, which allows you to implement very nice APIs." If

by gordaco 12y ago

"Because there is basically no type system that fights against you, you are unrestricted in what you can do, which allows you to implement very nice APIs." If you feel like the type system fights against you, chances are that you are doing something wrong. When I program, the type system definitely fights for me. It gives me a lot of guarantees, plus it's a really convenient way of self-documentation. I mean, I'm not even talking about Haskell or something really sophisticated: I see the advantages even in old plain Java or C++ (so much that, in fact, most of my gripes about Java are about its type system not being complex enough). Also, being "unrestricted" is far from being an universally good thing, since it also means many more opportunities for mistakes. I know for a fact that I make more mistakes in languages without static typing, but well, I guess it's just me.

eric_bullington 12y ago
>If you feel like the type system fights against you, chances are that you are doing something wrong. Like most things, I think this depends on context. Doing exploratory data analysis in a static, strongly-typed language, for example, is extremely painful. And writing quick, one-time scripts in such languages is usually more trouble than it's worth. For this reason, Python is a wonderful language for doing data analysis and writing quick one-time data munging scripts (and yes, I realize that Python can be considered strongly-typed). On the other hand, I've now been exposed to languages like OCaml and Rust, and have had time to think about Java, and I now have a different attitude when I'm building a large application that will have to be maintained. I'm beginning to feel extremely vulnerable when I use a language like Python or (worse yet) Javascript to build such applications. It's not that I'm not a Javascript hater. I like Javascript in general -- it has a kind of functional feel to it, it's easy to prototype quickly, you can use it client and server, nice ecosystem, and unlike so many I actually enjoy async programming. And I've long enjoyed Python for similar reasons. But for building a robust application that will have to be maintained a long-time, you have to religiously write tests in these languages or you'll be buried in bugs. And even then, you still may be buried in bugs that a static, strongly-typed language would have detected. For this reason, I'm looking hard for an static, strongly-typed alternative to Javascript for the browser (i.e., a language compiling to JS) for building large applications. And Ocaml's js_of_ocaml is definitely on my list of things to evaluate. So the programming language philosophy that I adhere to now is encapsulated in the hackneyed old saying "use the right tool for the job".
- jshen 12y ago
  "But for building a robust application that will have to be maintained a long-time, you have to religiously write tests in these languages or you'll be buried in bugs. And even then, you still may be buried in bugs that a static, strongly-typed language would have detected." People make this sort of claim all the time, but my personal experience has not borne it out, and I have seen no data to backup this claim which would override my personal experience. First, I find I have to write tests nearly as religiously in statically types languages, so I don't find that a convincing argument. Second, most bugs I've experienced in large code bases using a dynamic language are not the sort that would be caught by most typed languages. On this point there is even some data that backs up my personal experience (http://vimeo.com/74354480 http://vimeo.com/74354480). Third, writing code with a static language takes more time in my experience. Maybe it prevents a tiny fraction of bugs, but for most things I'll take saving significant time and cost over preventing 3% of bugs (I made up that number). In short, I'm not sold on these arguments for static typing.
  - MetaCosm 12y ago
    I agree with you on one part, writing static language INITIAL code, does generally take more time. Depending on the language, it can vary from slightly more in something like Go (where composition is valued over type hierarchies) to a great deal longer in languages that encourage lots of castle building and type relationships. That said, I have been in industry for over a decade in a half, and the most miserable, hellish experience I ever had was dealing with a large (100k+) non-trivial consumer facing Python application. It was a special type of pain, with novel errors happening in production on a regular basis 4+ years into the project. Refactoring was horrifically risky, and the analysis tooling stack is AWFUL... to the point that when used, it was often outright wrong. I will gladly give up those cost savings on the leading edge, to have a product I can actually maintain in the long term. I suspect this inability to maintain apps writing in certain dynamic languages is why they have culture bias towards starting over (and being proud of it, "version 2.0, rewritten from scratch!")... which I found a bit shocking at first versus C, which would trend far more toward refactoring.
    - 12y ago
gaius 12y ago
Absolutely - like the NoSQL guys don't realize that a DB enforcing a schema is helping you.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  About this... Some types are more important than others. And the NoSQL guys usualy choose the most important ones to throw away. Static vs. dynamic typing in languages are orders of magnitude less relevant, and one can choose to trade safety for other features much easily on this domain.

by gordaco 12y ago

eric_bullington 12y ago

>If you feel like the type system fights against you, chances are that you are doing something wrong. Like most things, I think this depends on context. Doing exploratory data analysis in a static, strongly-typed language, for example, is extremely painful. And writing quick, one-time scripts in such languages is usually more trouble than it's worth. For this reason, Python is a wonderful language for doing data analysis and writing quick one-time data munging scripts (and yes, I realize that Python can be considered strongly-typed). On the other hand, I've now been exposed to languages like OCaml and Rust, and have had time to think about Java, and I now have a different attitude when I'm building a large application that will have to be maintained. I'm beginning to feel extremely vulnerable when I use a language like Python or (worse yet) Javascript to build such applications. It's not that I'm not a Javascript hater. I like Javascript in general -- it has a kind of functional feel to it, it's easy to prototype quickly, you can use it client and server, nice ecosystem, and unlike so many I actually enjoy async programming. And I've long enjoyed Python for similar reasons. But for building a robust application that will have to be maintained a long-time, you have to religiously write tests in these languages or you'll be buried in bugs. And even then, you still may be buried in bugs that a static, strongly-typed language would have detected. For this reason, I'm looking hard for an static, strongly-typed alternative to Javascript for the browser (i.e., a language compiling to JS) for building large applications. And Ocaml's js_of_ocaml is definitely on my list of things to evaluate. So the programming language philosophy that I adhere to now is encapsulated in the hackneyed old saying "use the right tool for the job".

jshen 12y ago
"But for building a robust application that will have to be maintained a long-time, you have to religiously write tests in these languages or you'll be buried in bugs. And even then, you still may be buried in bugs that a static, strongly-typed language would have detected." People make this sort of claim all the time, but my personal experience has not borne it out, and I have seen no data to backup this claim which would override my personal experience. First, I find I have to write tests nearly as religiously in statically types languages, so I don't find that a convincing argument. Second, most bugs I've experienced in large code bases using a dynamic language are not the sort that would be caught by most typed languages. On this point there is even some data that backs up my personal experience (http://vimeo.com/74354480 http://vimeo.com/74354480). Third, writing code with a static language takes more time in my experience. Maybe it prevents a tiny fraction of bugs, but for most things I'll take saving significant time and cost over preventing 3% of bugs (I made up that number). In short, I'm not sold on these arguments for static typing.
- MetaCosm 12y ago
  I agree with you on one part, writing static language INITIAL code, does generally take more time. Depending on the language, it can vary from slightly more in something like Go (where composition is valued over type hierarchies) to a great deal longer in languages that encourage lots of castle building and type relationships. That said, I have been in industry for over a decade in a half, and the most miserable, hellish experience I ever had was dealing with a large (100k+) non-trivial consumer facing Python application. It was a special type of pain, with novel errors happening in production on a regular basis 4+ years into the project. Refactoring was horrifically risky, and the analysis tooling stack is AWFUL... to the point that when used, it was often outright wrong. I will gladly give up those cost savings on the leading edge, to have a product I can actually maintain in the long term. I suspect this inability to maintain apps writing in certain dynamic languages is why they have culture bias towards starting over (and being proud of it, "version 2.0, rewritten from scratch!")... which I found a bit shocking at first versus C, which would trend far more toward refactoring.
  - 12y ago

gaius 12y ago

Absolutely - like the NoSQL guys don't realize that a DB enforcing a schema is helping you.

marcosdumay 12y ago
About this... Some types are more important than others. And the NoSQL guys usualy choose the most important ones to throw away. Static vs. dynamic typing in languages are orders of magnitude less relevant, and one can choose to trade safety for other features much easily on this domain.