Fed-up with strongly typing
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Guirec Le Bars wrote:
you have to type
I often hear complaints about how much typing someone has to do. If you don't like typing, you shouldn't be a programmer. As to dynamic typing, while it's cool and fun, in the long run, the number of problems that I've had to fix that simply wouldn't be there in a strongly typed language all but eliminates for me the benefits. Not to mention that I wouldn't write anything that requires performance in a dynamic language, as these usually cannot be compiled into native assembly code but are either interpreted or are run in a VM. So I'll say it again, but this time metaphorically: If you don't like typing, you shouldn't be a programmer. Marc
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My BlogMarc Clifton wrote:
If you don't like typing, you shouldn't be a programmer.
I am a programmer cause I never liked repetitive tasks, I believe that typing .net/java code is highly repetitive... You might think differently: fair enough. But with all respect I am not judging what you should or should not be or do.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Not to mention that I wouldn't write anything that requires performance in a dynamic language
Many dynamic languages outperform statically typed languages... just have a go with LUA you should not be disappointed. And code is not all... the environment has a lot to do: run some compiled C# in IIS and compare performance with interpreted JS in node or run PHP within ligthy and you might end-up handling more than 3000 requests/sec http://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/PoweredByLighttpd[^]... Drop me a note when you achieve the same with csharp :-D
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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Marc Clifton wrote:
If you don't like typing, you shouldn't be a programmer.
I am a programmer cause I never liked repetitive tasks, I believe that typing .net/java code is highly repetitive... You might think differently: fair enough. But with all respect I am not judging what you should or should not be or do.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Not to mention that I wouldn't write anything that requires performance in a dynamic language
Many dynamic languages outperform statically typed languages... just have a go with LUA you should not be disappointed. And code is not all... the environment has a lot to do: run some compiled C# in IIS and compare performance with interpreted JS in node or run PHP within ligthy and you might end-up handling more than 3000 requests/sec http://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/PoweredByLighttpd[^]... Drop me a note when you achieve the same with csharp :-D
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
Guirec Le Bars wrote:
I believe that typing .net/java code is highly repetitive.
Well, typing itself is repetitive - 30 or so keys, over and over and over again! ;)
Guirec Le Bars wrote:
just have a go with LUA you should not be disappointed.
Interesting. If I can wrap my head around learning yet another language. I have a some very complex analysis algorithms that I think would make a great test case for measuring the performance of any language / environment. ;)
Guirec Le Bars wrote:
Drop me a note when you achieve the same with csharp
Well, is that IIS or C#? (I am rather biased against IIS, I find it's configuration alone to be a total PITA.) Compare that to my only other experience, Rails - you just fire it up. It's so freakin' simple! Marc
Testers Wanted!
Latest Article: User Authentication on Ruby on Rails - the definitive how to
My Blog -
Strongly typing has one big advantage: it will force you to grow from a jerk to a proficient programmer. Yes, many programmers never get proficient but then strongly typing is not the cause :-) But here we are: when you are proficient in your domain of expertise (eg: embedded, gaming, LOB apps, multi-million users websites or whatever is your mod) then strongly typing is just a pain... It only multiplies by X (I am curious here... anyone? ) the number of reserved keywords you have to type to get to an equivalent result that you would get with a dynamic language. What do you guys think?
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
I believe you mean static typing[^], not strong typing. Anyway, this is a controversial topic. I personally prefer static typing for anything bigger than a simple script, but there are people who strongly (and statically :D ) disagree.
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My point is that experienced programmers don't use 'dynamically' typed languages unless they have to because experience teaches them that it's a bad idea. It doesn't seem like a bad idea at first because it's 'easy' but when you look back at the amount of time spent debugging and the stability/lifetime/readability of the code never mind the quality of the tools available to debug it JavaScript, Python, PHP and all their unholy offspring should have been drowned at birth.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
the stability/lifetime/readability
stability : hhmmmm... what's that? as soon as you change a line of code somewhere some sort of instability appears right? and if you don't change anything then dynamic is as stable as strongly typed... lifetime: with a new version of the .net framework every year which, each time, brings more syntactic sugar (anonymous delegate, initializers, linq, etc...) then the code written today is extremely different from the one wrote a few years ago. It seems to me that there is less of a trend/fashion style for dynamic languages devs. readability: once again this is related to your seniority level I think. It is pretty easy to write unredable code in .Net/Java.
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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Guirec Le Bars wrote:
I believe that typing .net/java code is highly repetitive.
Well, typing itself is repetitive - 30 or so keys, over and over and over again! ;)
Guirec Le Bars wrote:
just have a go with LUA you should not be disappointed.
Interesting. If I can wrap my head around learning yet another language. I have a some very complex analysis algorithms that I think would make a great test case for measuring the performance of any language / environment. ;)
Guirec Le Bars wrote:
Drop me a note when you achieve the same with csharp
Well, is that IIS or C#? (I am rather biased against IIS, I find it's configuration alone to be a total PITA.) Compare that to my only other experience, Rails - you just fire it up. It's so freakin' simple! Marc
Testers Wanted!
Latest Article: User Authentication on Ruby on Rails - the definitive how to
My BlogMarc Clifton wrote:
If I can wrap my head around learning yet another language.
no doubt you can...
Marc Clifton wrote:
I have a some very complex analysis algorithms that I think would make a great test case for measuring the performance of any language / environment
go ahead!
Marc Clifton wrote:
Well, is that IIS or C#?
Unfortunately both I guess...
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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Strongly typing has one big advantage: it will force you to grow from a jerk to a proficient programmer. Yes, many programmers never get proficient but then strongly typing is not the cause :-) But here we are: when you are proficient in your domain of expertise (eg: embedded, gaming, LOB apps, multi-million users websites or whatever is your mod) then strongly typing is just a pain... It only multiplies by X (I am curious here... anyone? ) the number of reserved keywords you have to type to get to an equivalent result that you would get with a dynamic language. What do you guys think?
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
Well - for some odd reason the micro-rant remapped in my mind to the following: It's easier to "go" into your diaper than got to the bathroom facilities and taking care of your business with some grace. It may be easier to just do what you want wherever you want to do it but the downside irritations (coding or diapering) from the shortcuts are sure to catch up with you some day. There are some benefits within the price of growing up (?)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Well - for some odd reason the micro-rant remapped in my mind to the following: It's easier to "go" into your diaper than got to the bathroom facilities and taking care of your business with some grace. It may be easier to just do what you want wherever you want to do it but the downside irritations (coding or diapering) from the shortcuts are sure to catch up with you some day. There are some benefits within the price of growing up (?)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Man, I had to google 'diaper' to understand and finally get to the highly philosophical point of your post... You might be the wise man of the thread : maybe I am simply getting older and am unconsciously ccoming back to my youngest behaviours ;P Boobs, give me boobs!
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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Freak30 wrote:
The compiler will surely check them all.
I want one of these! Please let me know which compiler as you are using. A compiler which checks all code path is priceless!
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
Guirec Le Bars wrote:
Please let me know which compiler as you are using.
It's called C#
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Guirec Le Bars wrote:
Please let me know which compiler as you are using.
It's called C#
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
sorry, if that's a joke I did not get it... C# is the name for a language and your compiler is most probably csc.exe then. this compiler is far (far = 'years away' but that is not further than any other compiler I am aware of) from being able to analyse all possible code paths....
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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Strongly typing has one big advantage: it will force you to grow from a jerk to a proficient programmer. Yes, many programmers never get proficient but then strongly typing is not the cause :-) But here we are: when you are proficient in your domain of expertise (eg: embedded, gaming, LOB apps, multi-million users websites or whatever is your mod) then strongly typing is just a pain... It only multiplies by X (I am curious here... anyone? ) the number of reserved keywords you have to type to get to an equivalent result that you would get with a dynamic language. What do you guys think?
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
Strong typing allows the compiler to catch errors, which is the cheapest way. If you ride without training wheels, you should know how to ride or expect to fall. Preferably both. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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sorry, if that's a joke I did not get it... C# is the name for a language and your compiler is most probably csc.exe then. this compiler is far (far = 'years away' but that is not further than any other compiler I am aware of) from being able to analyse all possible code paths....
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
The C# compiler, and any other compiler for a strongly- and statically-typed language, certainly will check the data type of variables through every possible code path. It may not know the value of a variable at a particular point or evaluate all possible paths through the code (that is impossible for anything which takes external input, after all), but it can check the type, and if you make a type related mistake anywhere in your code, it will be caught.
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Marc Clifton wrote:
If you don't like typing, you shouldn't be a programmer.
I am a programmer cause I never liked repetitive tasks, I believe that typing .net/java code is highly repetitive... You might think differently: fair enough. But with all respect I am not judging what you should or should not be or do.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Not to mention that I wouldn't write anything that requires performance in a dynamic language
Many dynamic languages outperform statically typed languages... just have a go with LUA you should not be disappointed. And code is not all... the environment has a lot to do: run some compiled C# in IIS and compare performance with interpreted JS in node or run PHP within ligthy and you might end-up handling more than 3000 requests/sec http://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/PoweredByLighttpd[^]... Drop me a note when you achieve the same with csharp :-D
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
Guirec Le Bars wrote:
Drop me a note when you achieve the same with csharp
Easy. Asp.net has had asyncronous handlers for years, plus the http caching layer runs partialy at the driver level. You are writing async code and aren't using any drag and drop junk at that point, but the asp.net platform has way more performance than the web forms libraries.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
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The C# compiler, and any other compiler for a strongly- and statically-typed language, certainly will check the data type of variables through every possible code path. It may not know the value of a variable at a particular point or evaluate all possible paths through the code (that is impossible for anything which takes external input, after all), but it can check the type, and if you make a type related mistake anywhere in your code, it will be caught.
Great. The compiler help me in making sure I don't mix-up class Person with class Country or int with Toto. Awesome... Do you really need a compiler for this? I mean, can't you just concentrate when writing code? Or adopt Hungarian Apps style which is definitely every programmer's friend? Anyway you are not answering the vey valid point of Freak30
Freak30 wrote:
And what if the proficient programmer misses one of the code paths during his tests
Answer: I don't know! But I am sure that csc does not help in any way for that! The .net platform gives too many facilities which make the posiible code paths just too numerous (infinite? at least overflowing...)
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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Guirec Le Bars wrote:
Drop me a note when you achieve the same with csharp
Easy. Asp.net has had asyncronous handlers for years, plus the http caching layer runs partialy at the driver level. You are writing async code and aren't using any drag and drop junk at that point, but the asp.net platform has way more performance than the web forms libraries.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
Easy? if you say so... IMHO, asp.net can't handle 3000 requests per second. Even if you remove every single HttpModule and just stick to a very basic HttpHandler....
Andy Brummer wrote:
Asp.net has had asyncronous handlers for years
hopefully... at OS level everything is asynchronous by nature. Synchronicity has been brought to developpers to facilitate their lives but that is not the norm for any Win or posix computer.
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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that is definitely not the case. but a proficient programmer is anyway testing is code and just don't rely on compilation, right?
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
always testing your code is a good thing. it doesn't remove the benefit of compile time checking provided by strongly typed languages though. i.e. regardless of how much runtime testing you do, and/or how proficient you are, there's still a benefit to be had from also having compile time checking.
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Strongly typing has one big advantage: it will force you to grow from a jerk to a proficient programmer. Yes, many programmers never get proficient but then strongly typing is not the cause :-) But here we are: when you are proficient in your domain of expertise (eg: embedded, gaming, LOB apps, multi-million users websites or whatever is your mod) then strongly typing is just a pain... It only multiplies by X (I am curious here... anyone? ) the number of reserved keywords you have to type to get to an equivalent result that you would get with a dynamic language. What do you guys think?
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
Strongly typing is the rubber treading that stops you sliding down that slippery slope of laziness. A more accurate comment is actually: Typing is a tool and needs to be used appropriately. It can save man-hours in finding bugs, and can cost man-hours in hacky work-arounds. We're moving more and more to web services for communication between our systems and to allow loose coupling we're relying extensively on JSON and C# dynamics. Untyped development makes the code simple, elegant and fast to write as well as robust to changes (as long as we catch exceptions), but it means an awful lot of referring to external documentation or external code to check properties and data types, so we lose the instant feedback that is intellisense.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Strongly typing has one big advantage: it will force you to grow from a jerk to a proficient programmer. Yes, many programmers never get proficient but then strongly typing is not the cause :-) But here we are: when you are proficient in your domain of expertise (eg: embedded, gaming, LOB apps, multi-million users websites or whatever is your mod) then strongly typing is just a pain... It only multiplies by X (I am curious here... anyone? ) the number of reserved keywords you have to type to get to an equivalent result that you would get with a dynamic language. What do you guys think?
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
I like my typing like I like my drinks: strong. :cool: But seriously, I think the only insufficiently-typed languages I've used I'd classify as "scripting languages" -- Perl and DCL come to mind. Such languages have their domain, but I would hesitate to write an actual system in one.
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Strongly typing is the rubber treading that stops you sliding down that slippery slope of laziness. A more accurate comment is actually: Typing is a tool and needs to be used appropriately. It can save man-hours in finding bugs, and can cost man-hours in hacky work-arounds. We're moving more and more to web services for communication between our systems and to allow loose coupling we're relying extensively on JSON and C# dynamics. Untyped development makes the code simple, elegant and fast to write as well as robust to changes (as long as we catch exceptions), but it means an awful lot of referring to external documentation or external code to check properties and data types, so we lose the instant feedback that is intellisense.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
it means an awful lot of referring to external documentation or external code
1. it looks like an interesting feature to have devs reading some documentation 2. they will read it once or twice and then they will remember. At that point in time you will end-up with "the code simple, elegant and fast to write as well as robust to changes". Isn't it the point?
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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always testing your code is a good thing. it doesn't remove the benefit of compile time checking provided by strongly typed languages though. i.e. regardless of how much runtime testing you do, and/or how proficient you are, there's still a benefit to be had from also having compile time checking.
I do agree with you but I am at a point where I don't think the benefit outweight the cost....
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^] Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
