Re: [Caml-list] Q: safe language

[David Frese <dfrese@dfrese.de>]

On Fri, 2002-08-30 at 15:49, Vitaly Lugovsky wrote:
> On 30 Aug 2002, David Frese wrote:
> 
> > >  (cadr '(1))
> > 
> > This shows that Lisp is safe, because it results in an error, and does
> > not return some value from out of nowhere (or does it).
> 
>  No. In this place program may be expecting some structure, which can 
> contain NIL. There is no other way in lisp to define structures - so, any
> code accepting lists will accept any alien structure. Is is type safety? 

If you are refering to the fact, that the expression above returns NIL,
then yes, this is no type-safety, and a very bad thing - I did not know
that.

> No way! Dynamically typed languages can't be safe.

I don't think this is a problem of dynamic or static typing, but a mad
behaviour of Lisp.

BTW: I guess we're getting a little bit off-topic now.

David.
-------------------
To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/
Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners