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From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Dynamic typing (part 3)
Message-ID: <878@optima.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 20 Mar 91 00:40:41 GMT
Sender: news@cs.arizona.edu
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In article  <28149@dime.cs.umass.edu> victor yodaiken writes:
]
]I'm not at all sure that type determination is always something that one
]can entrust to a compiler. 

I wasn't advocating that.  In most dynamically typed languages the
compiler has no idea what the type of anything is.  The programmer
knows the types and, where it isn't obvious, he should document the
types.  There is no reason (other than efficiency) that he should be
required to specify the type to the compiler.

The same applies to math.  Mathematical notation should be such that
the types of variables are clear.  But there is no reason why the
notation should include formal "declarations" when there are other
easy ways for a human to tell what the types are.  Mathematics is
written for humans to read, not computers.  I claim that programming
languages should also --as much as possible-- be designed for humans
to read, not computers.
--
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
noao!arizona!gudeman