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by ballenf 3217 days ago
He cites two articles going into much more detail on the line of thinking regarding the tradeoff that is static typing. I realize this is one of those tab/spaces kinds of religious debates, but hopefully all sides can acknowledge that we are talking tradeoffs and not universal truths. Maybe one day we'll see loose typing as evil as "goto" statements, but the evidence isn't there yet. IMO.
2 comments
striking 3217 days ago
Goto statements aren't always (or even usually) evil either. Sometimes I get the feeling no one ever really read past the headline of that paper.

Sure, you shouldn't use them unless you really have to, but "really have to" is a line that is difficult to discern. Dijkstra himself noted, "The exercise to translate an arbitrary flow diagram more or less mechanically into a jump-less one, however, is not to be recommended. Then the resulting flow diagram cannot be expected to be more transparent than the original one."

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mhd 3217 days ago
Goto statements still have their fans, and on the other end of the spectrum you'll find people arguing that things like multiple return statements and exceptions are basically the same. It's hard to find absolute truths in computing. I bet there are a few people who'd like us to ditch that whole binary kerfuffle, too.

But yeah, they're trying to be productive in the short term, so it's probably not worth overanalyzing whether a distaste of static typing isn't emblematic of other issues. Getting things rolling has a higher priority...

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jnbiche 3217 days ago
> I bet there are a few people who'd like us to ditch that whole binary kerfuffle, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun

Knuth has also hypothesized that we may one day start producing ternary computers again due to their efficiency and elegance.

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