Comment by belorn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by belorn | Hacker News Reader

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If there are types that allow you to not care about the type, then why have a type?

People argue that they need types to very that you do not add in programming errors, and in order to easier read what the code does. In the environment I operate in and the jobs I do, types do not achieve those things. All they do is add unnecessary information and restrictions that need to be worked around.

Shell is an interesting environment in that there really is only one type: string. There are no int, no floats, barely any arrays (rare enough that I don't ever use them). You run a program with string inputs and you may get an string output in return. The majority time writing a shell script is spent on manuals, understanding how different programs interact, and data flows. This remain mostly true for dynamic languages. For static typed languages some of the time get redirected on dealing with types, declaring types ahead, and making sure the type declarations and castings are correct.

    If there are types that allow you to not care about the type, then why have a type?

The type represents a set of properties about the inhabiting values so if you have an opaque value you don't want others to inspect, wrapping it in such a type makes that explicit throughout the rest of the program. That information is not available if every value in your type has the same type. Presumably though you will actually attempt to do something with the contained value at some point so you must have some expectation about what it is.

You're making an entire argument about something you clearly haven't properly tried. It sounds like you have your own misconceptions about what static typing is and how types work. Your premise is flawed so it's difficult to have a conversation.

I would encourage you to try typescript for a while, it's very approachable and has excellent tooling.

One can measure the quality of a discussion in how often people refer to the arguments, and how often they refer to the person. You're making... you have your own misconceptions... Your premise is flawed... encourage you to try...

I have worked with 10+ different languages, multiple different IDE's, some types and some dynamic, some like shell which doesn't really have the concept of types at all.

If you are encouraging me to try typescript because you think its great, then I would encourage you in return to test python in combination with system and integration tests. It makes for a very safe environment where you know your code is working.

I've worked with python for 17 years. I maintain that given your arguments, you haven't tried a properly set up static language.

I know how to make python safe with TDD. It doesn't even sort of compare.

You can maintain that if you like.

I don't want to speculate why you feel so attached to static languages. I worked with python in 15 years, you in 17. I have done low level embedded C code. I done web development, and shell scripts. Tried lisp, and programmed in Ada. If you have also worked with similar amount of languages and reach a different conclusion then either your work is very different from mine, or you as an other person have a different experience than mine.

When it comes to keeping simple thing being simple, static languages has never delivered for me. In embedded system I live with that aspect, but that's the nature of such environments. The primary question when working with dynamic language is: "is there already a library that does what I want, and how do I modify it to work in my use case". Instead of thinking about structure and types, I am thinking about interfaces.

I will conceit one example where a static typed language is much better than a dynamic typed, and it illustrate the environment where such language aspect shine. SQL. SQL with dynamic types would be horrible and any database which treat types some-what dynamic is a horror to work with. SQL does not make simple things simple, and database exceptions are quite harsh in every aspect. There is also few if any interfaces, so its types or nothing.

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