From: David Naseby <david.naseby@...>
Date: 2003-11-20T12:11:20+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping"

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Sean O'Dell [mailto:sean@celsoft.com]
>> You're making the presumption here that type checking can be
>> correlated with "safety", which I'm not sure has been shown yet.
>
>It's associated with "understanding" which is usually the predicate of 
>"safety."  Understanding what a method expects helps you to 
>call it properly.
>
Understanding can be accomplished through investigation (irb, unit-tests)
and documentation, in addition to, or as an alternative to, type checking. 

I'd encourage library developers to work on unit tests and documentation,
which aid me as a library consumer, as opposed to ramped up guard clauses,
which just get in my way as a library consumer.

David.