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

["Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org>]

On 6/4/2015 3:14 PM, Shark8 wrote:
> On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 11:23:51 AM UTC-6, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>
>> It is because nothing interesting happened since 1995. We are living
>> through the Dark Ages of computing...
>
> I blame the popularity of C/C++ and *nix.

In software, inertia is everything. Once something takes hold, it is
very hard to impossible to change it or replace it, due to the huge
inertia it has and the amount of investment made in it. For example,
almost all software games are in C/C++, it is almost impossible to make
the industry change this now.

> Perhaps the best things to come out of the FP domain is (a) a more widespread
>disdain for C's fast/loose typing,

Well, it seems most of the new and popular languages these days are
based on loose typing. Python? duck typing? Javascript? PHP? Perl? etc...

Who needs strong typing, when there is a good debugger?  :)

>(b) the realization that global state and side-effects can/should be
>avoided when possible, and (c) the realization that C language-family
>syntax is not indicative of "a real programming language".
>

--Nasser