Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!olivea!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Run-time Type Errors in Smalltalk Message-ID: Date: 17 Apr 91 13:38:17 GMT References: Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK. Lines: 26 dnsurber@lescsse.jsc.nasa.gov (Douglas Surber) writes: > In <1917@optima.cs.arizona.edu> gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes > >If they > >hadn't caught those errors by static typing they would have caught > >them by testing -- the same way the found the other 90% of the errors. > >This logic error combined with the strident tone of the article > >suggests that your convictions are affecting your thinking. > > The real question is how long would it take them to catch those errors > by testing? The type checker catches them all first time every time. > Admittedly not every error, but reducing the number of errors by 10% > before you even begin testing sounds like a win to me. What, even if your code has to be twice as long and twice as complicated and take three times as long to write, because you're writing it in a statically-typed language? Yes, if the program you're writing is NOT best expressed in a dynamically-typed way, then go ahead and use static typing. But saying that static typing is ALWAYS the best solution is just blinkered stubbornness. mathew -- If you're a John Foxx fan, please mail me!