Re: Static vs. Dynamic typing

From: Ilja Preuß (it_at_iljapreuss.de)
Date: 09/10/04 

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:54:34 +0200

Cristiano Sadun wrote:

> It just came to me that STC can be seen as a test in itself - in TDD
> sense: it can be executed before the functionlity is written or
> available, then fixing the code makes it pass the test. "execution"
> is the set of type- check steps of the compiler.
>
> For example, trying to invoke an unexisting method in a class (this
> example works better for OO rather than procedural, since methods are
> part of the type definition) results in a test (compilation) failure;
> or not having a return statement of the proper type; etc.

A nice example. When using a dynamically typed language, the same tests
fails, too, because of the same problem (object does not understand
message) - just at runtime instead of compile time. So in this specific
case, the compile time check doesn't seem to buy us anything, as far as I
can tell...

Cheers, Ilja

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