From: Jim Weirich <jweirich@...>
Date: 2002-03-09T11:24:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Interesting link on static/dynamic typing...

>>>>> "Matt" == Matt Armstrong <matt@lickey.com> writes:

    Matt> Robert Feldt <feldt@ce.chalmers.se> writes:
    >> ...relevant to Ruby compared to other languages discussion:
    >> 
    >> http://www.chimu.com/publications/short/whyDynamicTyping.html

    Matt> I'm often surprised that ML (and languages like Ocaml)
    Matt> aren't brought up more in these discussions.  People seem to
    Matt> hold up Java and C++ as the only examples of statically
    Matt> typed languages.

I've always found the following article interesting.

    http://perl.plover.com/yak/typing/typing.html

It was given to a Perl monger's group, but has very little Perl
content in it.  It really clarified the difference between Static vs
Dynamic typing and Manifest vs Implicit typing.  (C++ is static and
manifest, Ruby is dynamic and implicit, Haskell is static and
implicit).  Many of the flexibility benifits of dynamic typing are
really those of implicit typing.  

That's one of the reasons I'm glad the Language of the Year project is
looking at Haskell.  I'm hopelessly behind, but am trying to catch up.

-- 
-- Jim Weirich     jweirich@one.net    http://w3.one.net/~jweirich
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, 
not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)