On Mar 10, 8:26 am, Vincent Foley <vfo...@gmail.com> wrote:
[...snip...]
> I'd like to
> mention that I'm also a fan of static typing and that to this day, I
> still don't know whether I prefer the freedom and flexibility of
> dynamic typing or the constraint and safety of static typing.
That dichotomy seems to be the one that most people like to discuss
when weighing the advantages of different programming languages, but I
confess that it seems sort of irrelevant to me. I don't mean that no
one should care about it; just that I can't work up much enthusiasm
about it.
I've thought of Lisp as my native language in programming for around
twenty years now, but I'm comfortable in other languages. I like ML a
lot, and I like Haskell more. I like their type systems, but the
alleged safety they provide has never been part of the appeal; rather,
I like how easy and natural it is to describe types, even complicated
ones. It's expressiveness I like, rather than magical protection
against bugs (no disrespect intended to anyone who likes ML and
Haskell for their safety).
Maybe I have a skewed perspective, having done my first serious
programming in 6502 assembly language. I remember that C seemed like a
very high-level language to me at one time (albeit one with an
annoying number of gotchas). FORTH was more comfortable. Lisp, when I
got my hands on it pretty much kicked everything else out of the
house. I didn't intend to like it (it looked rather unappealing in
books) but in no time at all I was thinking in it.
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