🚀 go-pugleaf

quale@khan.cs.wisc.edu (Douglas E. Quale) writes:

>This statement suggests that programs compiled in dynamic languages contain
>more type errors than similar programs written in statically typed languages.
>Unfortunately I don't know of any studies that have been made that could
>definitively affirm or deny this.  In fact, I don't know of any evidence at
>all that points one way or the other.

I also do not know of any studies, and have been a little swayed
towards dynamic typing by the arguments presented in this group.
However I still have some doubts. For example, what calibre are the
programmers who are using these dynamic languages? For large projects
out in industry, it is less likely that you will have a team of
hot-shot programmers. Good programmers are likely to do a good job in
any language. But what about the not so good programmers. Maybe they
need more hand-holding as provided by a static language. Are most of
the people using dynamic languages more research oriented (and so
hopefully better trained)?

The other argument I have for static typing is that it is a form of
very formal documentation. Using types specifies exactly how you expect
a piece of code to be used - exactly what values can be passed to a
function and what can be returned from a function. Sure, a clever
compiler may be able to determine these things. But that is not a form
of documentation for users. Sure, you could just use comments. But from
my limited experience in large projects, its very easy to get lazy and
leave some out. Most software does not just have to get written.
It has to be maintained later, often by someone who did not write
the original program.

My main complaint with static typing is that there are not many
languages that do a good job of it. C is pretty bad. Pascal is too
inflexible.  Eiffel, while it may have problems, is certainly a step
better. It seems to me it is not the concept of static typing which is
the problem, but rather that not many statically typed languages do a
very good job.

Oh well, that is my 2 cents worth, if its worth even that! :-)

Dr Alan Kent
Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
ajk@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au