> > Dynamical languages are above all oriented toward practical programming > needs *in certain contexts*--in other contexts, static typing is more > practical. >
Agreed -- which is why I find your speculation about "lightening up" with "more experience ... meeting the demands of practical coding" to be unsound. For those of us whose "practical programming" context includes a high cost associated with most any runtime bug, greater embrace of static typing, not "lightening up", comes with more practical experience. I can be happy using a dynamically typed language when the price to be paid for getting it wrong isn't as high; but all of my experience goes against "lightening up" in the demanding programming context where I work every day. On Monday, December 23, 2013 10:04:52 AM UTC-8, Mars0i wrote: > > I came to this thread late, and have only skimmed some of the answers, but > I think that the following, somewhat oblique, opinion hasn't yet been > expressed about the, I don't know, maybe ... harassment by "type weenies" > that zcaudate feels. Apologies in advance if I've missed a similar point. > > First, I'll note that I agree with many of the comments so far. To > everything there's a season. That goes for type systems. > > In what I say next, I'm not trying to offend anyone. I'm expressing > half-baked opinions about what I feel are general tendencies. I am certain > that there are exceptions to *every* generalization I make. > > My personal opinion: > > Many of us who like programming like it partly because we like order, > systematicity, and elegance, at least in our thinking. We like things to > make sense. Some people have a greater need for this than others, at least > at certain stages of their life. So things that seem more clean and neat > are attractive. Full-fledged static typing has this character. It's > appealing because it's orderly in a very, well, strict sense. I think it's > probably easier to be religious about static typing and provable > correctness as a universal goal if you don't have to deal with a lot of > pragmatic concerns. So I suspect that many type zealots are students or > were recently, and that they'll end up lightening up in several years, > after they've got more experience with meeting the demands of practical > coding. (That's not to imply they'll necessarily give up affection for > static typing, but it's hard to be a zealot after you've freely chosen, > many times, to compromise on formerly rigid principles.) Dynamical > languages are above all oriented toward practical programming needs *in > certain contexts*--in other contexts, static typing is more practical. > Maybe some of the hard core static type advocates will see the potential > benefits dynamic typing when they get more experience. But you can't > *prove*, mathematically, that dynamical typing is better sometimes. Its > advantage comes out in actual *practice* in real-world situations. > ("Real world" doesn't mean business. I'm an academic coding solely for > research purposes (and fun!).) > > My 2c. > > -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.