Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!cis.udel.edu From: carroll@cis.udel.edu (Mark Carroll) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Static typing: the OOP seatbelt Message-ID: <49326@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Date: 30 Mar 91 00:19:09 GMT References: <27F11D7B.6309@tct.uucp> <49229@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Sender: usenet@ee.udel.edu Organization: University of Delaware Lines: 40 Nntp-Posting-Host: hercules.cis.udel.edu In article jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) writes: >>Any typing error that would be trapped in a staticly typed language >>can be captured in a dynamically typed languages using dataflow >>analysis. > >But now you need an additional tool besides an editor, compiler, linker, >debugger. And what makes you think the programmer will always remember >to USE the dataflow analyzer? What if he/she is in a hurry? (Oh, right, >programmers NEVER cut corners to meet schedules...) The idea of the >"simple language aided and abetted with other tools" has been tried >with lint for C, with predictable results. You'll note that there is >no need for lint++ with C++, precisely because the C++ compiler does >the work instead. This is progress. Do people on this group totally lack any knowledge of compilers? Dataflow analysis is a function of the compiler. It's primarily an optimization technique that also happens to have quite a few other uses. A dataflow analyzer would not be a separate tool. Frankly, an optimizing compiler that isn't already doing dataflow is a rather miserable compiler. And the statement "This is progress" applied to C++ seems to be a rather poor joke. There's damned little about C++ that could be called "progress". Honestly, what (besides multiple inheritance) is in C++ that wasn't in Simula? The only difference is that the C++ is even uglier. (Sorry, but I find C++ to be the ugliest, cruftiest, most primitive excuse for an object-oriented language that I can imagine.) -- ---------------------- Mark Craig Carroll: ------------------------ ------ U of Del. Grad Student in CIS ------ EE/CIS LabStaff Hacker ------ -- Resident Wierdo @ 105 E Cleveland Ave, Newark DE - carroll@udel.edu -- ---------------------- Shalom Achshav - Peace NOW! ----------------------