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From: cpp@calmasd.Prime.COM (Chuck Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Run-time Type Errors in Smalltalk
Message-ID: <2604@calmasd.Prime.COM>
Date: 2 May 91 22:58:12 GMT
References: <3865@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> <530@eiffel.UUCP> <1991Apr28.022234.287@odi.com>
Followup-To: comp.object
Organization: Calma - A Division of Prime Computers
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I am glad Mr. Meyer and others admit there is a cost to redundancy.

Consider that many of the languages users prefer, from novice to theoretician,
from Basic to Lisp and Smalltalk, are dynamically typed.  Both because
it simplifies ad hoc experimenting, reduces code size and manifest
complexity, and makes polymorphism natural.

Has a cost of additional error and maintenance of dynamically vs.
statically typed programming really been proven?  No doubt perfectly
unmaintainable code has been written either way, and perhaps some of
the most challenging of smaller products, such as GNU emacs, have been
written with dynamically typed languages.  (Perhaps many formidable large
products as well.)  Even if there is an additional cost,  is it not usually
outweighed by productivity and inventiveness.

Perhaps statically typed languages should be used like assembly language,
where the added security (as with performance for assembly) justifies
recoding.  (Perhaps both security and performance in some measure.)