Re: Strong Typing, Dynamic Languages, What to do?

[Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu>]

Michael Vanier wrote:

> As for the first comment, I've been interested in hybrid approaches
> (usually called "optional static typing") for some time.  I guess the
> canonical example is Dylan, though Common Lisp also qualifies to some
> extent (depending on the compiler).  Such systems don't seem to have had as
> much impact as you'd expect, for reasons I don't entirely understand (never
> having worked with them).  

One possible reason is that the type system is a hodge-podge that
nobody can quite fathom -- a problem that none of the other type camps
(ML, Scheme, Java or even C) suffer from.  Your parenthetical phrase
("depending on the compiler") points to one of the problems.

For a modern variant that exhibits these same defects, see Curl.  For
a while, I worried that they would superannuate us, but then I saw the
type system.  I doubt they'll extract themselves from that mess.

Shriram