From: Patrick Logan <patrickdlogan@...>
Date: 2001-01-15T05:10:02+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:9299] 101 Misconceptions About Dynamic Languages


"Josh Stern" <jstern@foshay.citilink.com> wrote in message
news:3a615fb9$0$78691$65a95bcd@news.citilink.com...
>
> C++... is strongly typed for function calls.

In fact, C++ is *not* strongly typed for function calls. I can pass in
any damn thing I want to, to a function, and the language will not
prevent it.

In fact, I can cause the entire process to be corrupted because of
this, and worse. It is a misnomer to say that C++ is *strongly*
typed. It is not.

C++ is a statically, yet weakly, typed language. The most dangerous of
combinations, IMHO.

Ruby *is* strongly typed. It happens to use dynamic type checking, but
that checking is strong.

> One of the key benefits of static typing is obviously speed.  If one
> always works on little problems then speed is not an issue...

I have worked on little problems where speed *is* the issue. And I
have worked on _many_ large problems where the speed of the language,
per se, is not the issue. So I see that claim above as a gross
oversimplification.

> ...many people work on problems where C, C++, Fortran, you name it,
> are all not fast enough.

I agree, and they should choose the best tools for their problems.

However, a lot of people I have had discussions with over the last ten
years or so have held on to the notion that that set of problems is
much larger than it really seems to be from my experience of using
dynamic languages for going on 20 years.

> Static typing also tends to catch a lot of  dumb errors.

I have never suffered from lack of static typing. I *have* suffered
from the presence of it.

> Such a feature needn't affect you if you didn't use it, but whatever.

It would if other programmers used it and I wanted to use their code.

--
Patrick Logan
mailto:patrickdlogan@home.com