Re: Build language with weak typing, then add scaffolding later to strengthen it?

[Bill White <bill-white@dont-email.me>]

On 2015-05-22, J-P. Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote:
> Le 22/05/2015 13:29, kalvin.news@gmail.com a ?crit :
>> Even C could be made more robust, if simple type checking is
>> performed at compile time. For example,
>> 
>> typedef int apples;
>> 
>> typedef int oranges;
>> 
>> apples a = 5; oranges o = a;
>> 
>> should generate type check error as the types are definitely
>> different types. Also, assigning enums to ints and ints to enums
>> should be considered illegal.
>> 
> I don't agree. C is a low level language, and good at that.

C isn't good at anything except to serve as a bad example!

> Its types are those of the  machine: bytes and addresses

Rather, C's types are those of C's virtual machine- C's view of the
hardware. And that makes C unsuitable for systems programming and not very
portable without defining your own types. Just because something is widely
used doesn't mean it's suitable. There are other factors like price,
availability, etc. Cheap (free) won long ago.

> If you need strong typing, use a strongly typed language. But don't
> blame C for not being strongly typed, it was simply not part of the
> requirements.

Agreed. But then the only requirements C ever really had were for ease of
implementation.