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Re: [Axiom-developer] B#
From: |
Gabriel Dos Reis |
Subject: |
Re: [Axiom-developer] B# |
Date: |
21 Nov 2005 00:10:30 +0100 |
"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:
| On November 20, 2005 2:47 PM Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
| >
| > "Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:
| > [...]
| > | I wonder if your colleague who said: "strong typing is for the
| > | weak of minds" really knows what "types" in computer programming
| > | really are?
| >
| > well, if Pascal has a strong type system, then I can't see how I
| > can disagree :-/
| >
|
| Perhaps you said this only as humour? But I am curious since it is
| not clear to me who you are not disagreeing with ... ?
Partly as humour, and partly seriously. I don't think strong typing is
a goal in itself; I have had lot of experience with good type systems
helping me catching silly errors early in program development, and
alleged "strong type systems" getting in my way.
| Pascal was the first strongly typed language that I learned. I wrote
I started with BASIC and Pascal was my second programming language,
the more serious I programmed with (and I did not have much choice
given the French educational system at the time).
| what I thought was a fairly substantial medical application in UCSD
| Pascal on an Apple II microcomputer. I believe that the type system
| really did contribute to more reliable software development. From a
| historical perspective it is interesting to speculate why Pascal did
| not survive.
I'm not sure we have much to speculate about, given the facts. I can
only speak for myself and I would refrain from generalization; but
Pascal's "strong type system" did not help me. I got far more
positive experience later with (O)Caml and C++ (and even Scheme!). I
don't believe it is a matter of dynamism vs. non-dynamism. For me, it
is a matter of what I can express and how I can express it.
| I think perhaps it was because in the end it's type
| system was not quite flexible enough (compared say to Haskell). As a
| result C, with almost not type system dominated (and still dominates)
| most application development.
C has a type system -- serious C programmers know how to use it. Yes,
it does not get anal-retentive about it where it should. And that is
a pity. Notice that Pascal and C started almost at the same time...
-- Gaby
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, (continued)
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, Bill Page, 2005/11/19
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, root, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, Hans Peter Würmli, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, root, 2005/11/20
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, Bill Page, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2005/11/20
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, Bill Page, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, Doug Stewart, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2005/11/20
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, Bill Page, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#,
Gabriel Dos Reis <=
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, root, 2005/11/20
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, Bill Page, 2005/11/20
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, root, 2005/11/20
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, Bill Page, 2005/11/21
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, C Y, 2005/11/21
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, Ralf Hemmecke, 2005/11/22
- Re: [Axiom-developer] B#, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2005/11/20
- RE: [Axiom-developer] B#, Bill Page, 2005/11/20