From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: *** X-Spam-Status: No, score=3.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, RATWARE_MS_HASH,RATWARE_OUTLOOK_NONAME autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public From: "Bob Jarvis" Subject: Re: Static vs. Dynamic typing again (was Re: OO, C++, and something much better!) Date: 1997/01/24 Message-ID: <01bc0a1e$faed8ce0$c318b993@jarvisb>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 211978009 references: <32DF458F.4D5C@concentric.net> <32DF94DC.6FF8@watson.ibm.com> <32DFD972.37E4@concentric.net> <32E4FC5B.242C@watson.ibm.com> <32E6862D.608B@parcplace.com> <32E764D0.23D9@calfp.com> <32E7A686.56D@parcplace.com> <32E7BD57.2558@calfp.com> <32E7E08A.3079@parcplace.com> <32E8BCE3.3029@calfp.com> organization: The Timken Company newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.object Date: 1997-01-24T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Richie Bielak wrote in article <32E8BCE3.3029@calfp.com>... > There seems to be a cultural gap between the static-typing and > dynamic-typing crowds. I was raised on statically typed languages > and feel lost in a dynamically typed language (I fiddled little > with Smalltalk and now I'm playing with Python). I mean, I read the > code and can't tell what type a variable is... As were many of us ("raised" on statically-typed languages). I guess that after a while you just shrug your shoulders and say, "Oh, nuts. If the dang object responds properly to the messages I send it, what do *I* care what its actual type or class is?". This discussion reminds me of an analogous situation I encountered when making the transition from mainframes to PCs. I'd worked with mainframes for about ten years before I first encountered PCs and was used to and comfortable with mainframe concepts for accessing disk files. When I got my first PC I wanted to write a program to randomly access records in a file, so I started trying to figure out how to specify access method, record length, block size, record format, and all the other "mainframe-isms" I was used to. Needless to say I was somewhat confused for a while until I figured out that on a PC *all that crap didn't matter*! Files were accessed by byte offset from the start of the file - period. If you wanted to start reading at the beginning, fine. If you wanted to start reading or writing from/to somewhere else in the file, fine also. But you *didn't* have to muck with all the other garbage I'd come to think of as "normal". It just didn't matter! Perhaps the difference between statically and dynamically typed languages is similar. -- Bob Jarvis Mail addresses hacked to foil automailers! Send replies to jarvisb@timken.com