From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-10-01T13:28:48+09:00
Subject: Re: thoughts on typelessness


From: "Bryan Murphy" <bryan@terralab.com>


> >
> >
> >In Ruby, the attitude always has to be "you can ...", with the disclaimer
that
> >"you can't guarantee ...".  If you're writing code for yourself, you trust
your
> >own "interfaces" and use them to organise code and communicate intention
> >better.  If you're coding with other people, you obviously need to trust
that
> >they will not drive on the wrong side of the road just because they can.
> >
> >But your points certainly do drive a wedge further between mixins and
> >interfaces, the latter no longer being considered a Java specialty.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Gavin
> >
> >
> >
> Yeah, and I think that gets to the core issue why everybody keeps
> talking about types and static typing.  Static typing, contracts,
> interfaces, it can all be summed up in one thing:  people wanting to
> guarantee a minimum amount of functionality.  Is that a Ruby thing?  I
> really don't know, but it's basically what people are clamoring for.  If
> we can solve this problem while still keeping Ruby Ruby, that might go a
> long way to bringing these threads to an end! :)
>
> What's the solution?  I'm really not sure.  I'm not a language designer,
> but I'm thinking about it.  If I have any good ideas, maybe one day I
> will send them.
>
> Bryan

It's not a Ruby thing.  Amongst experienced Rubyists (not including myself
here) there's a belief that static typing is limiting, and the benefits of it
are either illusory or available through other means.  In other words, Ruby has
a certain flavour to it, a paradigm if you will.

There's some discussion on this at
  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?DynamicVsStaticTyping
as well as other places on the Wiki (search "static typing")

Gavin