From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2003-11-21T15:44:58+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping"

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:33:39 +0900, Clifford Heath wrote:
> Your comments on refactoring are well-taken, but I feel would be
> solved better by better tool support in a more strongly-typed
> language. To safely refactor in any language, you must be
> confident of limiting side effects. A dynamic language just makes
> side effects will occur at runtime instead of compile time - and
> if your test suite doesn't give very high code coverage how will
> you know that the system can be released. Remember, you can't just
> patch it after it's in production because it's not just one local
> customer, it's dozens.

Um. Sorry, but type signatures don't promise you that side effects
are limited to compile-time. Only testing will do that. Which brings
you right back to the advantages of dynamic languages as opposed to
static type signatures.

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.11.21
                                         * 01.43.11