Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!brolga!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!uqvax.cc.uq.oz.au!wattle!cszthomas From: rnews@qut.edu.au Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Do we really need types in OOPL's? Message-ID: <18261.27131385@qut.edu.au> Date: 10 Oct 90 12:26:45 GMT References: <0yw10qr@Unify.Com> <411@eiffel.UUCP> <736@tetrauk.UUCP> <1990Oct5.013201.12459@cbnewsc.att.com> Organization: Queensland University of Technology Lines: 41 In article <1990Oct5.013201.12459@cbnewsc.att.com>, lgm@cbnewsc.att.com (lawrence.g.mayka) writes: > The occurrence of a type error, far from being a "crash and burn at > runtime", is merely a software exception like any other, and responds > to similar treatment by the appropriate exception handler. Which in most cases of type errors will not be able to recover and will propagate back up to the operating system and kill your system; still not a terribly useful situation from the users point of view. > I encourage those who claim that dynamic typing is "the wrong choice" > for large software systems to actually run experiments on large (e.g., > over a million lines of source) software systems, comparing dynamic > vs. static typing - above all, for ease of modification and extension. Seeing as you are the one to do the encouraging would you care to show us the results of your tests? Or are your opinions based on personal preference like everyone elses? > Note that for the statically typed system in the experiment, you must > not take advantage of any flexibility ascribable to dynamic typing > (e.g., multiple executables tied together by Korn shell > scripts/commands or ASCII pipes/files). Such usage is simply an > admission that beyond a certain size, your total program is unwritable > and/or unusable without dynamic typing. No, you must look instead at > a very large, statically typed software system that runs in a single > address space (or in multiple address spaces that communicate via > statically typed messages). Why is it that the evangelists in the dynamic typing crowd refuse to believe that you can combine the advantages of both static and dynamic typing in one language? Look at Eiffel and Modula-3 as examples of languages that have made an attempt at combining the best of both worlds. My own language OOM2 will in its later incarnations also attempt to achieve a good union of static and dynamic typing (it already does some). Au revoir, @~~Richard Thomas aka. The AppleByter -- The Misplaced Canadian~~~~~~~~~~~@ { InterNet: R_Thomas@qut.edu.au ACSNet: richard@earth.qitcs.oz.au } { PSI: PSI%505272223015::R_Thomas } @~~~~~School of Computing Science - Queensland University of Technology~~~~~~@