From: Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...>
Date: 2003-11-20T12:01:40+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping"

Sean O'Dell wrote:

> That's my experience.  I love Ruby, but I just don't see a large
team working 
> together without at least SOME form of type checking.

Does smalltalk have it?  (Genuinely asking, I was under the
assumption 
it did not, but I don't know smalltalk.)  I do believe there have
been 
some historically large smalltalk projects in the past, no?

>>However I have noticed that I need to "read the source" far more
often
>>than with Java libraries, and correctly interpreting the source
requires
>>experience.
> 
> Thank you, that was my point.  It's far easier to read the method
definition 
> and see the types than to dig around in code.  Good for smallish
projects, 
> not efficient nor safe for large team projects.

I might note here that the fact he has to read the source wasn't 
attributed to the fact there were no types listed.  (It might have 
been, but you're presuming it was, and I see no evidence of that
based 
on the quote.)

>>I would love to do a comparative experiment myself; one team with
Java
>>and one with Ruby. Just not sure the boss would fund it :-)
> 
> 
> This was my point, too.  At least with some type checking you could
show that 
> Ruby would be at least as safe as Java, but with all the freedom of
Ruby.  
> It's a win-win.  Hard to argue against.

You're making the presumption here that type checking can be 
correlated with "safety", which I'm not sure has been shown yet.




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