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From: rick@tetrauk.UUCP (Rick Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: A Hard Problem for Static Type Systems
Message-ID: <1155@tetrauk.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 91 09:14:37 GMT
References: <554@eiffel.UUCP> <1991Apr26.203642.17387@leland.Stanford.EDU> <556@eiffel.UUCP> <52166@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991May1.143831.2065@maths.nott.ac.uk>
Reply-To: rick@tetrauk.UUCP (Rick Jones)
Organization: Tetra Ltd., Maidenhead, UK
Lines: 19

In article <1991May1.143831.2065@maths.nott.ac.uk> anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker) writes:
]  [ ... ]
] Dynamic typing is often more convenient, but it is, I still maintain,
] *necessary* only when you, the programmer, don't know what types of
] objects your program is going to have to deal with or what operations
] are going to be effected on them.  That situation might be acceptable
] for a quick prototype, but not for a finished system.  That is why it
] is easy to describe *situations* in which dynamic typing is desirable,
] but we have not seen a completely specified *problem* for which it is
] needed.

This has to be the most succinct description of the relative advantages of
static and dynamic typing that I have seen - thank you, I agree entirely.

-- 
Rick Jones, Tetra Ltd.  Maidenhead, Berks, UK
rick@tetrauk.uucp

Any fool can provide a solution - the problem is to understand the problem