Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!udel!haven.umd.edu!socrates.umd.edu!socrates!rockwell From: rockwell@socrates.umd.edu (Raul Rockwell) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Dynamic typing (part 3) Message-ID: Date: 3 May 91 12:05:35 GMT References: <2450@optima.cs.arizona.edu> Sender: rockwell@socrates.umd.edu (Raul Rockwell) Organization: Traveller Lines: 20 In-Reply-To: nix@asd.sgi.com's message of 2 May 91 22: 16:54 GMT Stephen P Spackman > > DYNAMIC typing uses tags always Nix Thompson > ... unless the typing can be completely determined at compile time, > and the tags can be optimized out. > Is there any reason why this can't be done? Are there any > "dynamically typed" languages that do this? The compiler I use does this almost all the time. However, it is mostly used for compiling "leaf" functions to be used in an interpreted environment. Basically, its only purpose is to cut out interpreter overhead (including type-checking) for problems that involve a lot of little operations on the same piece of data. The interpreter has better performance in other problem domains. (the sort of optimizations compilers do IS a tradeoff...). Raul Rockwell