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Comment by winstonewert | Hacker News Reader

I'd make yet a different account of the benefit of dynamic typing. My reasoning skills exceed that of my compiler and I can thus determine that certain designs are type-safe that my compiler cannot. This means that in static languages I end up either 1) spending a lot of time convincing the compiler my design is type-safe, 2) am restricted in the designs I can choose 3) casting types losing the advantage of static typing. With dynamic typing I'm free to just write the code.

Having said that, I now really like Rust which goes all the way in the other direction.

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> My reasoning skills exceed that of my compiler...

Well, your reasoning skills are different from your compiler. You can see things that the compiler can't. But the compiler can also see things that you don't until the compiler points them out to you.

> ... and I can thus determine that certain designs are type-safe that my compiler cannot.

True. But your compiler can also see that certain things are not type-safe that you think are.

Personally, I'm inclined to something like "the human can over-ride the compiler, but only after listening to it.

> Well, your reasoning skills are different from your compiler.

Very true.

> Personally, I'm inclined to something like "the human can over-ride the compiler, but only after listening to it.

For me, it depends on the language. If you have generics, macros, and non-nullable types: I'm on board. If you lack any one of those, I'd rather be dynamic. I don't want to be constantly overriding the compiler, writing a lot of boilerplate, or still have to deal with nulls.

This is a very good argument against mandatory automatic static checks, so long as they are replaced with equally mandatory manual proofs, included in the program's comments and/or documentation. But it does not justify dynamic typing in any way. For example, most programming languages offer no way to statically verify array indexing operations, so I just get my hands dirty and prove my array indices correct the old fashioned way (brain, paper and pen). But runtime bounds checking still annoys me, because they branch on a bit whose value I know beforehand, creating an unreachable control flow path.

Are you telling me that you do a formal proof on pen and paper for every array index to ensure that it is valid?

Yes. This is the only way you can justify that you know better than the compiler.

So, if you wrote the following code:

   double sum(double[] numbers) {
      double total = 0.0;
      for (int index = 0; index < numbers.length; index++) {
         total += numbers[index];
      }
      return total
   }

You would write a formal proof on paper that the index won't go out of bounds?

Theorem: Whenever `numbers[index]` is used, `0 <= index < numbers.length`.

Proof: Use the loop invariant `0 <= index <= numbers.length`. The invariant holds before the loop begins because `index == 0` (established by you) and `numbers.length >= 0` (established by the implementor of the array type) imply it.

Inductively assume that prior iterations of the loop preserved the invariant and didn't perform any invalid indexing operations. Now, every time the loop's condition is evaluated, there are two possibilities: either `0 <= index == numbers.length` or `0 <= index < numbers.length`. In the former case, the loop terminates and no further indexing operations are used, establishing the claim. In the latter case, `numbers[index]` is a valid indexing operation, and the subsequent `index++` operation does not destroy the invariant, because, given the precondition `0 <= index < numbers.length`, the operation `index++` establishes the postcondition `0 < index <= numbers.length`, which implies the invariant.

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Note, however, that in this case it would have been more efficient to use an iterator, because the iterator's implementation already packages this proof in a reusable way, so that you don't need to reprove it every time you write a loop similar to this.

Well, I've never seen anyone write a proof for a function so trivial. Instead, most people will simply deem the proof to be sufficiently obvious they don't need to write one out. I've only ever seen someone offer something in terms of a proof for more complex situation where its decidely non-intuitive that array indexes will not go out of bounds.

You can only deem it obvious if you can actually prove it.

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@winstonewert

> True, but the key word is "can". I could write a proof that my dynamically typed programs are correct

If you could actually write the proof, then you would not want the dynamic checks, as all they offer is protection against errors that you can prove you have not made.

> or that my functions do not index out of bounds, but I don't.

Are you actually sure you can?

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@AnimalMuppet

> By a certain point, you've seen enough of them that you don't have to prove it, you can just see it.

If all your loops are so similar to each other that you can “just see” that an iteration pattern is correct, you should consider writing an iterator library, so that others can benefit from your hard-earned wisdom without going through the pain themselves.

Or else, if you are implying that you could be given an arbitrary loop and “just see” that it is correct, I am afraid you are wrong.

> But of course, everybody thinks they're at that point well before they actually are...

I have never even entertained the possibility.

> If you could actually write the proof, then you would not want the dynamic checks, as all they offer is protection against errors that you can prove you have not made.

Even if I write a formal proof, I'm not guaranteed that my program won't index out of bounds. Formals proofs have errors in them all the time. I want dynamic checks to catch me in those cases.

Further to the point, let me reiterate: programmers do not (in almost all cases) write these proofs you are talking about.

Yes! This is the nice moment when the other party in the debate starts to back off from their original position, which, I shall remind you, was:

> My reasoning skills exceed that of my compiler and I can thus determine that certain designs are type-safe that my compiler cannot.

Anyhow. Back to your last comment:

> Even if I write a formal proof, I'm not guaranteed that my program won't index out of bounds.

If you actually come up with a proof, you are completely guaranteed that the proven statement is true.

> Formals proofs have errors in them all the time.

Correction: Purported proofs often actually aren't proofs. It is not a proof if it is wrong.

> I want dynamic checks to catch me in those cases.

Thanks for making my point for me! Self-quotes are decidedly not tasteful, but this situation calls for a reminder:

> It is useful (again, according to proponents, not me) to consider these inconsistent attempts valid programs so that programmers can obtain example-based feedback about the consequences of their designs. Logic and abstract reasoning are not everyone's forte, after all.

Anyhow. Back to your last comment:

> Further to the point, let me reiterate: programmers do not (in almost all cases) write these proofs you are talking about.

This is just a statement of fact, which is true, indeed. But it doesn't support your original position in any way.

We've asked you before not to be uncivil on HN or take it into tedious, repetitive flamewars like this one. Not only are you still doing it, it looks like you're using HN exclusively for it. That's not what this site is for. Since you can't or won't stop, I've banned your account.

The purpose of HN is to gratify intellectual curiosity, not smite readers with the same harangues over and over again. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as intended in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Correction: Purported formal proofs often actually aren't formal proofs. It is not a proof if it is wrong.

Yes, in the strictest sense an incorrect proof is not a proof. But at the same time, people often call either flawed proofs or purported proofs formal proofs in a looser sense. You cannot be unaware of this point. You must have understood what was being conveyed. Yet, instead you decided to engage in a nitpick over the meaning of the phrase "formal proof"

Furthermore, your claim that "If you actually come up with a proof, you are completely guaranteed that the proven statement is true." is utterly unhelpful. You know that my point was that a manually verified proof might still be wrong. And yet rather than addressing that point you decide to evade it by an ill-considered nit pick on whether an incorrect proof is still a proof.

So at this point, you are not discussing the questions in good faith, and I'm done with this conversation.

(And no, I'm not backing off my position.)

> But at the same time, people often call either flawed proofs or purported proofs formal proofs in a looser sense.

They are wrong. A purported proof is only a proof if it is actually correct. If you cannot reliably come up with a proof, not mere purported proofs, then just be honest and say so. We are not in a consultant-client relationship, so you gain nothing by lying about your skills to me.

> You know that my point was that a manually verified proof might still be wrong.

Only if you cannot reliably come up with correct proofs.

> And yet rather than addressing that point you decide to evade it by an ill-considered nit pick on whether an incorrect proof is still a proof.

It is not an “ill-considered nitpick”. It is essential to my point. If you can prove that your assertions hold, you do not need to check them dynamically. (Of course, this is logically a triviality, and it is awful that I need to explicitly make this point.)

True, but the key word is "can". I could write a proof that my dynamically typed programs are correct or that my functions do not index out of bounds, but I don't. Nor has any programmer I've ever worked with. Nor has any open source project I've ever seen provide such proofs. People do not write these imaginary proofs, because it would be a waste of time.

I disagree. I've been programming professionally for 33 years. I may have written one wrongly-indexed "for" loop in the last 10 years. By a certain point, you've seen enough of them that you don't have to prove it, you can just see it.

But of course, everybody thinks they're at that point well before they actually are...

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