From: Clifford Heath Date: 2003-11-21T17:13:36+09:00 Subject: Re: "stereotyping" Austin Ziegler wrote: > Um. Sorry, but type signatures don't promise you that side effects > are limited to compile-time. That's true, but they help by catching some cases. Said cases are more likely to occur in some programs and human environments than others. Whether Ruby should be used in environments where these errors are common and avoidable seems to be the main bone of contention. Optional typing (whether static, dynamic, or some combination) would increase the range of purposes for which Ruby is suitable. You might not want that, but I do. > Which brings you right back to the advantages of dynamic languages > as opposed to static type signatures. No it doesn't. It leaves you with no guarantee, but more confidence. But there are no guarentees anyhow - even if the software works as designed, nothing says it meets the user's need. Nothing's certain in life, instead we must live within certain confidence levels. Static typing can improve confidence levels. So can thorough testing. Nothing about the absence of static typing can yield these particular improvements - though individual languages may have (mostly) unrelated other features which do, including reduced verbosity. Clifford.