[falcolas]

There is never a person more zealous (and vocal in their zealotry) than a new convert. You don't see the bad points, just the good.

That's how this post comes across: "Types are so awesome, let me show you how awesome types are!"

Come back in two years, show us how the types feel after the honeymoon is over.

[zaphar]

7 years after I first learned to love type systems and the honeymoon hasn't worn off.

They definitely have some tradeoffs. Depending on the type system sometimes something I think should be expressible in a particular way isn't and I have to do it differently. There is some extra cognitive load forced on me when reading the code.

But the upside is huge. Refactoring is easier and safer. The production launch of the application is less scary. I'm even faster at end to end development with a type system backing me up.

[dvlsg]

I think recognizing that there are tradeoffs is the best way to get me to consider your stance. It says you've used it long enough to be honest about its flaws. Anything else just feels disingenuous to me.

I totally agree with you, though. The ease of refactoring alone is a big enough win to get me on board.

[62747478182]

> Come back in two years, show us how the types feel after the honeymoon is over.

I have been programming for more than 20 years, with a lot of different languages.

Until six years ago, most of my languages were on dinamic typing (PHP, Bash, Perl5, Python, Ruby, ...). I used C sometimes, but it was not the common case.

Then, 6 years ago, a friend show me Scala. I was lucky because I could use it in my daily job. Two years ago I started to use Rust for some stuff.

That said, after years using languages with good type systems, I can say dealing with a dinamic type system in a big project is a huge PITA. Almost every time I have to deal with legacy code (mostly Ruby) I really miss both Scala and Rust.

The honeymoon is over for me, and now I'm in a very stable and wonderful relationship :P

[jamescostian]

While I agree that type systems often get in the way, and that the author is only pointing out bad points and not good ones, aren't you doing the same? At least the author is trying to back up their claims (e.g. they provide an example where someone decided to put sizes in strings).

The honeymoon part is also an unfair assumption, not to mention incorrect. I just clicked on "About me", clicked on the author's github link, and after some scrolling and clicks, I found a rust commit from August 2015 the author made - thus, the author has been here for 2 years, and is not some newbie.

You should provide a list of cons involved with type systems that aren't so glaringly obvious that the author has probably already ran into them, and that will serve as a much stronger argument (e.g. you could bring up the fact that in large codebases with lots of generics, type systems drastically increase time spent typing, as well as cognitive overhead when there are <T>s and <T, E>s and so on all over the place).

[falcolas]

Because my comment was not about type systems, it was about the fervor and lack of usefulness of the post itself. Plus, I'd just be repeating myself and others much more eloquent than I - why do that?

Plus, arguments about typed languages rank up there with vi vs Emacs (or is it now vi/emacs vs. Atom/VSC?) in terms of my interest in joining them. I like statically typed languages. I like dynamically typed languages. I dislike weakly typed languages. What more to add?

[sqeaky]

You may be entirely correct, but the way you have presented your position looks extremely unconvincing.

What I can see: You chime in on a discussion with a strongly critical viewpoint, then refuse to back it up saying you don't want to be part of certain kinds of arguments. Implying religious level flamewars, while the rest of us are keeping a level head and discussing these things based on technical merit. It looks like you are making excuses because it looks like you have no point. Even if that wasn't what you intended and you have strong points, that isn't what it looks like from the outside.

Please remember that not everyone has exactly your experience so if you have examples you should share them because they will make your points stronger even if someone attempts to rebut them. It also artificially weakens your point to try to back out with what from the outside look like excuses instead of substance. Again, I must say you might be entirely correct, I just can't see that from here.