Re: Is strong typing worth the cost?

[Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com>]

tmoran@acm.org wrote:
> > Sometimes dynamic typing will be better (like, when you're tracking
>   Whoa!  Just what did the OP mean by "strong typing"? 

I don't know. That's why I said it's important to figure out what Derek
is talking about. 

He said 
> But I my interest is purely in
> the advantages of strong typing.  Language comparison is too
> broad an issue.

That's just silly, tho. You can't take a language as strongly typed as
Ada and just throw away the typing, and expect to get anything
worthwhile out of it. It's like saying "I want to investigate the effect
of different engine sizes on automobile performance, so I'm going to put
this V-8 in a VW Bug and see how it handles." If you don't change the
steering, the transmission, and the wheels to match the new power (let
alone the center of balance), it's not going to work well. 

x : Integer;
is neither more nor less strongly typed than
y : Integer range 0..5000;
in Ada. If you're trying to do this study and then generalize it to
something other than Ada, something about strong vs weak typing, then
you're going to be playing the GIGO game. If you ask
> So where are the studies showing that strong typing in Ada (or
> Pascal) saves money/time, creates more reliable programs, etc?
and then only compare Ada programs, you're getting garbage.

Ask a similar question - "How efficient would an Ada program be with no
type declarations?"  You can't answer that, because "Ada without type
declarations" is a meaningless phrase. So of course there's no
experimental evidence about which is better.

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
   The 90/10 rule of toothpaste: the last 10% of 
         the tube lasts as long as the first 90%.