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

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

Oscar Fuentes wrote:

> For all the things C++ needs, IMHO, better type safety is not the most
> urgent. A group of users are pushing for adopting features from the
> functional programming field, which would reinforce the multiparadigm
> aspect of C++, but the sacred cows that speaked so far are not very
> open to the idea :-(

Please, let's have some truth in advertising!  What the efforts to add
functional programming to C++ call functional programming is at best a
weak approximation to the real thing.  While some of them (like FC++)
are admirable, no self-respecting functional programmer would ever
create a closure by hand.  Nor would any self-respecting functional
programmer happily forego full-blown garbage collection.  This kind of
"multi-paradigm" talk is all well and good to make C++ programmers
feel good about themselves, but it's downright patronizing when
addressed to the actual functional community.

Shriram