Re: A couple of questions about goops method parameters

[Taylan Ulrich Bayirli/Kammer <taylanbayirli@gmail.com>]

Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> writes:

> The primary upside of static types is much faster code.

Optimization of dynamic typing can go pretty far AFAIK.  In an ideal
case, type-checks are hoisted to outside critical sections of code and
don't affect the speed of e.g. a tight loop.  And then there's JIT and
all that jazz...

> The downside is boilerplate and clutter that make it a huge chore to
> write and maintain the code.

Users of languages with good static type systems like ML and Miranda
descendants would rather argue that types make the program more
maintainable, and aren't too much of a bother since they're inferred in
many common cases.  Not my own experience, but I have no reason for a
wholesale disbelief against them (only skepticism on *how* great static
typing is).

> In my experience, high-level programming languages allow you to
> accomplish more challenging feats with better quality and productivity
> than statically typed languages.
>
> I'm saying use low-level programming languages when you have to and
> high-level programming languages when you can.

Using high-level/dynamically-typed, and low-level/statically-typed as
synonyms seems pretty wrong.  There are very low-level dynamically typed
languages (Forth), and very high-level statically typed ones (Haskell).

Taylan