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From: px@fct.unl.pt (Joaquim Baptista [pxQuim])
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.object
Subject: Re: blip [Re: Dynamic typing -- To Have and Have Not ...]
Message-ID: <PX.91Apr1225918@hal.fct.unl.pt>
Date: 1 Apr 91 22:59:18 GMT
References: <3523:Mar1803:21:0591@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <22032@yunexus.YorkU.CA>
	<14160@life.ai.mit.edu> <1991Mar25.201620.5839@cua.cary.ibm.com>
	<879@puck.mrcu>
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In-Reply-To: paj@mrcu's message of 28 Mar 91 09:04:05 GMT

In article <879@puck.mrcu> paj@mrcu (Paul Johnson) writes:

   On the other hand I am interested in the assertion that type errors
   are rare in Smalltalk development.  Does anyone have any statistics to
   back this up?  I think this discussion could probably do with an
   injection of fact, lest it degenerate into a language flame war.

I do not have any hard data, but I believe that I can give you a give
argument for it.

In a strongly typed language such as Eiffel, the programmer must
declare the type of all its variables, arguments, and such. If the
programmer later changes its mind, these type declarations must be
updated everywhere, which is a tedious and error-prone process.

Having no types just means that this sort of error does not happen,
while the other kinds of error probably remain at the same level.

--
Joaquim Manuel Soares Baptista, aka px@fct.unl.pt, px@unl.uucp
Snail: CRIA, UNINOVA, FCT/UNL, 2825 Mt Caparica, Portugal

So long, and thanks for all the fish.