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From: "David Allsopp" <dra-news@metastack.com>
To: <caml-list@inria.fr>
Subject: RE: [Caml-list] Unsoundness is essential
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 12:26:53 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <018201c80679$86a2ba00$017ca8c0@countertenor> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1191461066.7542.48.camel@rosella.wigram>

> Ah, but that is what I *am* arguing for. The 'reasoning' is simply
> that 'the programmer knows best' -- when the type system doesn't.

"the programmer knows best" is one of the founding principles of BCPL!! I'm
not sure I agree, though - IMO Vincent is correct that being forced to
express things "properly" results in better code in the long run. Try
writing any substantial amount of BCPL[*]...

> The evidence is: programming languages with dynamic or unsound
> typing eg Python, C, are vastly more popular than those with 
> strong typing.

I'm not at all convinced that dynamic/unsound typing is the reason for the
popularity of C, etc - I've never met a C programmer whose eyes didn't pop
out on stalks when you explain that Ocaml cannot reference a null pointer
(not that that has ever caused a Damascene-road conversion to the language,
either!). <joke> C and Python's popularity is more down to needing ever more
programmers to debug the work of the previous programmers, right? :o)
</joke> Personally, whenever I go back to C, the novelty of the relaxed type
system is instantly worn away on the first tricky-to-repeat core dump... at
least an Ocaml exception has a cat in hell's chance of being found
systematically!


David


* With apologies and due deference to Martin Richards if he reads this list!


  reply	other threads:[~2007-10-04 11:28 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 41+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-10-03  8:35 Locally-polymorphic exceptions [was: folding over a file] oleg
2007-10-03 11:27 ` kirillkh
2007-10-03 11:48   ` [Caml-list] " Daniel de Rauglaudre
2007-10-03 12:19     ` kirillkh
2007-10-03 12:32       ` Daniel de Rauglaudre
2007-10-03 14:34         ` kirillkh
2007-10-03 20:39   ` Christophe Raffalli
2007-10-03 22:50     ` Unsoundness is essential skaller
2007-10-03 23:13       ` [Caml-list] " Jacques Carette
2007-10-04  1:24         ` skaller
2007-10-04 11:26           ` David Allsopp [this message]
2007-10-04 12:45             ` Vincent Hanquez
2007-10-04 15:07               ` skaller
2007-10-03 23:13       ` Vincent Aravantinos
2007-10-04  1:49         ` skaller
2007-10-03 23:28       ` Joshua D. Guttman
2007-10-04  1:52         ` skaller
2007-10-04  2:35           ` Brian Hurt
2007-10-04  7:46           ` Christophe Raffalli
2007-10-04  8:56             ` Arnaud Spiwack
2007-10-04 14:49               ` skaller
2007-10-04 15:00                 ` Harrison, John R
2007-10-04 15:29                 ` Andrej Bauer
2007-10-04 16:25                   ` skaller
2007-10-04 18:17                     ` Arnaud Spiwack
2007-10-04 20:54                       ` skaller
2007-10-04 22:24                         ` Arnaud Spiwack
2007-10-04 16:37                   ` skaller
2007-10-04 18:59                     ` Christophe Raffalli
2007-10-04 15:04               ` Andrej Bauer
2007-10-04 15:57                 ` Christophe Raffalli
2007-10-04 16:03                 ` skaller
2007-10-04 20:02                   ` Ken Rose
2007-10-04 21:00                     ` skaller
2007-10-04 15:31       ` Lukasz Stafiniak
2007-10-04 17:56       ` rossberg
2007-10-04 19:56         ` skaller
2007-10-04 21:07           ` rossberg
2007-10-04 22:23             ` skaller
2007-10-05  2:48               ` Bárður Árantsson
2007-10-04  2:16   ` Locally-polymorphic exceptions [was: folding over a file] oleg

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