Re: Static vs. Dynamic typing (big advantage or not)---WAS: c.programming: OOP and memory management

From: Jörn W. Janneck (jwjanneck)
Date: 07/09/04 

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 08:52:11 -0700

Thomas Gagne wrote:
> Jörn W. Janneck wrote:
> <snip>
>>
>>
>> so you are saying then that dynamically-typed languages dominate that
space?
>> or that people who are proficient in the use of dynamically-typed
languages
>> do not care for money, since they clearly eschew the billions of dollars
>> that they could make by moving as predators into this market, eating
their
>> statically-typed competitors' lunch?
>>
>> because if what you say is true, it can only by either of these two,
right?
>>
>> and why do i need to rewrite part that need to be optimized? in fact, why
>> can i not just compile smalltalk to gates? i can compile vhdl, which, as
you
>> know, has an elaborate static type system that does, indeed, occasionally
>> get in the way of expressing functionality. i am sure a
smalltalk-to-gates
>> synthesis tool would easily upset the entire eda industry. why does it
not
>> exist?
>>
> Heck, usually I'm the one accused of histrionics.

is that right?

> Who's to say I'm not
> already in a place where I'm competing against those languages?

i am not. all i can say is that not much is to be seen of you in these
spaces, which---given the claims concerning productivity, reliability
etc.---is more than surprising, because the people who use languages in this
space certainly *do* care about these characteristics, in fact they are
extremely sensitive to them, so it would be a significant competitive
advantage.

> I can't be
> everywhere at once, try as I may.

unless you personally represent the entire competence of dynamically typed
languages, your person was not, in fact, the focus of what i said before.

again: if what you say is true, i would expect dynamically-typed languages
to either dominate the embedded/hardware space, or the vendors of
corresponding tools do not care about that market. would you say they
dominate that space, and if not, why not?

[snip]
> Lower-level and statically-typed languages have a use, and I use them when
> appropriate. The question at hand, I thought, is when is it appropriate?

if i am to believe thomas g.m., the question at hand is: is it ever
inappropriate? or perhaps conversely, is it ever appropriate?

> As
> has been suggested by other posts that one language might be able to it
all
> doesn't strike me as plausible. C++ already tries to do that and is
> too-complex (IMO) as a result.

no doubt, it's a big and messy language, but when you say "too complex" then
it is "too complex" for what or whom? i mean, let's not forget the number of
people using c++ and the number of application areas it is used in. any
advocate of a niche language would have to look at this and think: what is
c++ doing *right*? and doubly so if that niche language happened to be
around before c++ even existed.

> The older it gets and the more things added to
> it (as is happening to Java) the more difficult it becomes to master.
Better
> to use multiple languages suited to their purpose than one that risks
being a
> master at none.

after its inception, c++ has dominated a huge chunk of software development
for a long time, until relatively recently, and even now it is far from
extinct. for better or worse, it was probably the first language that was
adopted in such a huge variety of markets and application areas, almost a
lingua franca of computing, and it is certainly one of the most successful
programming languages ever. to me this seems to suggest that it must've done
*something* right.

-- j

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