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: 2002-05-02 09:37:35 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone.socal.rr.com!cyclone3.kc.rr.com!news3.kc.rr.com!twister.socal.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3CD16B60.93078396@san.rr.com> From: Darren New X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is strong typing worth the cost? References: <4519e058.0204290722.2189008@posting.google.com> <3CCE8523.6F2E721C@earthlink.net> <3CCEB246.9090009@worldnet.att.net> <3CCFD76A.A60BB9A8@flash.net> <3CD0A3B8.7B7C8622@san.rr.com> <3CD15FAE.6DEE0AD@despammed.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 16:37:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.75.151.160 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: twister.socal.rr.com 1020357426 66.75.151.160 (Thu, 02 May 2002 09:37:06 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 09:37:06 PDT Organization: RoadRunner - West Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:23425 Date: 2002-05-02T16:37:06+00:00 List-Id: Wes Groleau wrote: > > > long as the end result looks good, it doesn't matter what the code looks > > like. It could be the most god-awful mess of spaghetti code and misnamed > > uncommented variables you can imagine, and it just doesn't matter. As > > soon as the film is out, you're never going to run the program again. > > That may be true if it's really "run-once" software. Well, considering that the matte paintings in the second half of Star Wars were painted on the same scraped-clean glass that the matte painting in the first half were painted on, yah, I'd say it's likely run-once. > But what if you want something you can use again, > something more general purpose. So that you can > spend a hundred thousand adapting it instead of > a million starting over. Here you're making the assumption that the people selling the movie have a non-zero interest in selling the software as well. I don't think it works that way. Half the time they can't even find intact versions of the movies themselves 10 years later, let alone the software used to create them. Now, maybe Pixar comes along and adds the routines to Renderman or something, but in that case, I think Pixar would generally wind up rewriting it from scratch anyway. The hard part is getting the algorithms and parameters right, not implementing them correctly given you know what they're supposed to do. > And what if it costs two million to get it working > when if it were readable and/or less buggy, it would have > cost one million? Then you just spent a million more than you thought you would. Or, rather, you spent 2 million on software to save 20 million worth of artists' time, rather than spending 1 million to save 20 million. I'm not saying strong typing is bad. I'm just saying it's not obvious that it's always a win, because not all programming has the same reliability requirements as the kind of "niche" ;-) that Ada works well in. > Back to the original question, eh? Well, the original question is "is strong typing good?" I'm just trying to point out that it's not really a yes/no question, and the right question to ask is "is strong typing good for me?" And then you get to define the appropriate meaning for "strong typing". Clearly, if your programming environment is based on something like Extreme Programming, then strong typing (as the OP seems to define it) is *not* going to be beneficial and will probably slow you down at least to half speed if not more. -- 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%.