Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!datura.rice.edu!wright
From: wright@datura.rice.edu (Andrew Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Dynamic typing (part 3)
Message-ID: <1991Mar15.153342.10670@rice.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 91 15:33:42 GMT
Sender: news@rice.edu (News)
Organization: Rice University, Houston
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Originator: wright@datura.rice.edu


I would like to see a concise summary of the claimed advantages of
dynamic typing.  The claimed advantages of static typing are numerous
and often argued (verification, efficiency, documentation, ...) but
the advantages of dynamic typing are less often discussed.  To start:

 ***  expressiveness (probably the single largest advantage)
 *    terseness (in that declaration of types is not required).
      This is a mild point given the advances in type inference,
      as witnessed by languages like ML.

Andrew Wright
Rice University