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=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no 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: 2002-05-01 17:26:07 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!isdnet!newsgate.cistron.nl!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is strong typing worth the cost? Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:39:07 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <4519e058.0204290722.2189008@posting.google.com> <3CCE8523.6F2E721C@earthlink.net> <3CCEB246.9090009@worldnet.att.net> <3CCFD76A.A60BB9A8@flash.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1020260348 12192 136.170.200.133 (1 May 2002 13:39:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 May 2002 13:39:08 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:23381 Date: 2002-05-01T13:39:08+00:00 List-Id: I'm pretty well convinced that you can't really conduct an experiment to demonstrate the superiority/inferiority of strong typing by using two different languages. There is so much more to language design than just its type model, so you can't really isolate just that one feature. The *best* you could hope to do is demonstrate that Language A that has amongst it weaponry strong typing, encapsulation, human readable syntax, ... (fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency...:-) in general results in higher productivity & quality than Language B that has weak typing, cryptic syntax, little to no compile or runtime checking, etc. Even that would be extremely hard to construct an experiment to demonstrate, but at least you can get it down to one (rather large) variable. That might lead one to guess that "strong typing" is one of the contributing factors to higher success, but it really isn't the same as being able to demonstrate that hypothesis with any scientific certainty. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com "Gary Scott" wrote in message news:3CCFD76A.A60BB9A8@flash.net... > > Even with the resources, you likely won't have equal knowledge in > multiple languages in order to do the best possible job in each > language. In a great many fields, execution performance is highly > important whereas not in others, so you also need to carefully choose > the problem you're solving in those multiple languages, possibly > designed specifically targeting specific, disparate problem domains. > Some languages claim to be "general purpose", but usually those are weak > in numerical programming. Those tailored for numerical programming are > often weak in "system" programming. So no matter what you do, it > probably won't be a fair comparison. >