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From: Luther Hampton <lhampton@erols.com>
Subject: Re: OO, C++, and something much better!
Date: 1997/01/28
Message-ID: <32EEBBBB.6D96@erols.com>#1/1
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references: <JSA.97Jan16141937@alexandria> <5buodl$bci@boursy.news.erols.com>
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 comp.object,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.eiffel
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Date: 1997-01-28T00:00:00+00:00
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Eric Clayberg wrote:
> 
> David Hanley wrote:
> 
> > All other things being equal, there are fewer errors that can
> > happen in a static typed system, as opposed to a dynamially typed
> > system.  Your refusal to accept this simple arguement makes you appear
> > as if you have some kind of religous attachment to your system.
> 
> Not at all. It's simply that your "argument" isn't that simple. While
> static typed systems will, in fact, prevent certain classes of errors,
> you have not proven that dynamically typed languages (like Smalltalk)
> don't *also* prevent certain classes of errors. Thus the issue of
> "fewer" errors is not very clean cut at all[.....] 

My initial take on David Hanley's point is: so what? In my experience
with languages such as Smalltalk and Objective-C (with the type-checking
surpressed) I have not found that the serious errors, i.e., the ones
that were *really* hard to find and fix, were related to incorrect
typing.  IME serious errors have to do with misunderstandings of the
requirements and the problem domain or subtle logic errors in the code. 
IMHO these are the stinkers, and no language finds them in a totally
satisfactory mannner.  Yes, its a little scary to accept that there can
be no *guarantee* that my Smalltalk program does not have a potential
type mismatch in it, but I'll get over it in exchange for some of the
advantages which I find in the language.

Rather than going back and forth about the merits of type checking we
should examine whether type mismatching is an important source of errors
in "tested" programs.

Luther Hampton  
>