[X] is nice but [Y] will get you most of the way and [dealing with the difference] is simple.
reads a lot like the Blub conceit. I'm not accusing you of that, but I do disagree that OO can give you what pattern matching typically does.
I also have no problem with the expression problem. C# has partial classes anyways, which work even if type checking is non-modular. Of course, I would like it if C# support some form of pattern matching, but not enough to switch over to F# (whose pattern matching isn't as rich as Scala's, anyways).
No, I would have quoted it the first time if it was. But if you want to repeat that again you will certainly sound conceited.
It's my fault for trying to engage an HN-er in a form of discourse other than debate.
Perhaps. But then again the "Blub conceit" is nothing that exists in real life as a proven fact of computer science.
It's just an argument expressed in an essay. Not some kind of formal logical error.
Might as well say "your argument reads a lot as something that an unbeliever in the flying spaghetti monster would say".
As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is looking down the power
continuum, he knows he's looking down. Languages less powerful than Blub
are obviously less powerful, because they're missing some feature he's used
to. But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction,
up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are
merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equivalent in power
to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good
enough for him, because he thinks in Blub.