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

[Oscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es>]

Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu> writes:

> 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.

Just a clarification: FC++ (among different others) is a library that
tries to bring some functional programming techniques to C++. Doing
so, it demonstrates that those techniques are painful to use without
some language support. Some people are lobbying for incorporating that
support to the language.

> 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.

Following Matthias Felleisen's wishes, I will not debate :-)

-- 
Oscar