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From: siritzky@acf2.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.st80
Subject: Re: Typed Smalltalk
Message-ID: <7360001@acf2.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-Jul-86 17:19:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: acf2.7360001
Posted: Sun Jul 13 17:19:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jul-86 23:16:38 EDT
References: <799@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 13

Just a few comments: 

1. If you have ever written a compiler you would know that adding strong typing
   does not make the compiler writers job any easier. Quite the opposite is 
   true. The typing of Ada has added quite some complexity to the compilers.

2. Smalltalk was probably intended to be strongly typed. This I get from the
   early papers on the language. It looks like the reasons that it is not is
   that it was too difficult to implement.

3. Why have strongly typed languages? I think that you will find that anyone 
   who has written a large program will agree that strong typing is a very 
   useful aid in developing these systems.