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Most of these runtime errors rarely make their way to production and are easily identified and rectified in cases when they do slip through. More restricted la

Most of these runtime errors rarely make their way to production and are easily identified and rectified in cases when they do slip through. More restricted languages, e.g. Java, do have advantages in terms of forcing developers to do some more self-documenting and better opportunities for tools to help with syntax highlighting, refactoring, and warning about those errors you mention. But those errors are usually caught easily even with basic test procedures and almost always if there's a half-decent automated testing regimen. A lot of it comes down to, who's writing this big project? If developers are talented, there's a lot to be said for the freedom granted by a language like Python or Ruby. If developers are more mediocre, the forcing function of a language like Java may help to produce a "boring" and larger but understandable code base.

rtpg 12y ago
>If developers are talented, there's a lot to be said for the freedom granted by a language like Python or Ruby. If developers are more mediocre, the forcing function of a language like Java may help to produce a "boring" and larger but understandable code base. This is a bit of a false dichotomy. Much like I don't think lisp is popular for its functional-ness or whatnot, I don't think python or ruby are popular for their dynamic properties. My guess is that 90% of it is just how the code ends up looking. And with type inference getting further along, I think we'll see more people realizing that typing is a great sanity test to have in your code (especially in big codebases). See the popularity of Go in pythonic circles. I have never been shown any non-tiny piece of robust code that was easier to deal with because of a language's dynamic nature. I have been on this Earth a bit less time than others, but my gut feeling is that it doesn't actually exist. (note: my day job involves a lot of python, and I love the language for many things. I am looking forward to optional type annotations, though, as are many of my coworkers)

rtpg 12y ago

>If developers are talented, there's a lot to be said for the freedom granted by a language like Python or Ruby. If developers are more mediocre, the forcing function of a language like Java may help to produce a "boring" and larger but understandable code base. This is a bit of a false dichotomy. Much like I don't think lisp is popular for its functional-ness or whatnot, I don't think python or ruby are popular for their dynamic properties. My guess is that 90% of it is just how the code ends up looking. And with type inference getting further along, I think we'll see more people realizing that typing is a great sanity test to have in your code (especially in big codebases). See the popularity of Go in pythonic circles. I have never been shown any non-tiny piece of robust code that was easier to deal with because of a language's dynamic nature. I have been on this Earth a bit less time than others, but my gut feeling is that it doesn't actually exist. (note: my day job involves a lot of python, and I love the language for many things. I am looking forward to optional type annotations, though, as are many of my coworkers)