From: E S <eero.saynatkari@...>
Date: 2005-01-09T04:35:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Type inference in ruby

> L�hett�j�: Eric Anderson <eric@afaik.us>
> Aihe: Re: Type inference in ruby
> 
> Trevor Andrade wrote:
> > I was wondering whether it would be possible to have a type inference system
> > in ruby.  My question was asked before
> 
> I am sure it is possible to implement but I think most people end up 
> wondering why do it? If you want a typed system (strong or weak) there 
> are plenty of languages that support it natively. For me that is one of 
> the reasons I left those other languages. For me a type system has too 
> much coding overhead without much benefit. The two advantages are:
> 
> * Catches type errors
> * Possibly better optimizations
> 
> To answer the first advantage Ruby encourages Unit testing. Unit testing 
> it 10 times better than type checking because it can not only check for 
> valid types but also check for logic errors. So why spend the overhead 
> of a type system when unit testing is better.
> 
> The second advantage again isn't an issue for me. Ruby is fast enough. 
> If I need it faster I can profile the code to find bottlenecks. If I 
> need it even faster I can recode the bottlenecks in C. Again, the 
> overhead of a type system is not worth even the possibility of better 
> optimizations.

A TI system could be implemented as a separate library to be run 
on some code rather than as a part of that code, as an additional
testing facility.

That being said, I think it may be too much trouble for little gain.
 
> Just my two cents,
> 
> Eric

E