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From: cs450a03@uc780.umd.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: RE: Dynamic typing (part 3)
Message-ID: <11APR91.08052192@uc780.umd.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 91 08:05:21 GMT
References: <1707@optima.cs.arizona.edu> <1991Apr11.053440.13401@comp.vuw.ac.nz>
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Brian Boutel writes:
>Let us suppose that we apply a function f to a list in which not all
>elements have the same type, ...  We know nothing about its members,
>except that they all can all be the result of ... f ...
> 
>Even if these values can tell you their own types, you can't write
>code to deal with all possibilities unless you know in advance what
>types can occur, in which case you can use a statically typed
>language, ...
>
>Any problem solution can be programmed in a statically typed
>language, ... union ...  [then complains about run-time errors]

Eh...?  You might as well say that any dynamically typed language is a
statically typed language.

My experience is that I can develop a program about 6 times as fast in
a dynamically typed language (APL in my case) than I can in a
statically typed language (C in my case--I'd be even slower in
FORTRAN).  This is anecdotal, but you've chosen to ignore dozens of
postings giving reasons why this might be so.  I've seen postings
which indicate other dynamically typed languages (Icon, Smalltalk)
have similar advantages.

Incidentally, I'd have to say C takes the cake as having the WORST
run-time-error behavior of any language I've seen (besides machine
language/assembly language).  Please don't confuse the sort of things
C does with its "dynamic types" with the sort of things that happen in
a "true" dynamically typed language.

Raul Rockwell