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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d89b08801f2aacae X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-30 10:36:57 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!nyc.uu.net!ash.uu.net!xyzzy!nntp From: Jeffrey Carter Subject: Re: Is strong typing worth the cost? X-Nntp-Posting-Host: e246420.msc.az.boeing.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <3CCED3EB.98B3B3D7@boeing.com> Sender: nntp@news.boeing.com (Boeing NNTP News Access) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: The Boeing Company X-Accept-Language: en References: <4519e058.0204290722.2189008@posting.google.com> <3CCE8523.6F2E721C@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 17:27:07 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en]C-CCK-MCD Boeing Kit (WinNT; U) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:23286 Date: 2002-04-30T17:27:07+00:00 List-Id: dmjones wrote: > > Why am I asking for this evidence? I am working on a detailed > analysis of C that includes material on coding guidelines. > I have set myself the target of basis these guidelines on > empirical evidence. I am a fan of strong typing. However, > unless I can find any evidence to the contrary, the most I > can say at the moment is "some people think ...". So, there is no evidence that the benefits of strong typing outweighs the costs. Is there evidence that the benefits of weak typing outweigh the costs? It seems that you are saying you will recommend strong typing if there is evidence for it, and you will recommend weak typing if there is no evidence against it. This is a double standard biased towards weak typing. Either you should recommend anything that has evidence for it, or recommend everything that has no evidence against it, or not even mention the subject in the absence of evidence one way or the other. -- Jeffrey Carter