[pwdisswordfish6]

Sounds like a double standard and possibly moving the goalposts. There are strongly typed languages that don't have those features, and compiler codebases that don't use that kind of architecture. Do they get a pass or not?

[mintplant]

I'm directly responding to the claim that you can "write a compiler in a strongly typed language, and then remove all the type annotations", and that's what compiler architecture looks like in a "weakly typed language". Compiler projects built in languages with richer typing can and do use it for purposes beyond correctness checking, and the idea that you can simply erase all the types and expect the code to work the same is a misconception.

[pwdisswordfish6]

You're pointing to cases to invalidate the claim as if that claim was supposed to be interpreted to be bracketed by a universal quantifier. It wasn't, and arguing in that way is not particularly insightful.

"You can write a compiler in a weakly typed language that resembles a compiler in a strongly typed language." Happy now?

The point, which you have ignored, is that there are strongly typed languages where the features you're relying on are not present. In fact, this is true of a bunch of the compilers that are among the most widely used in the world--ones that people are using to build projects written in C and C++ and things like the language support baked into IDEs for Java, C#, etc. So the relevant factor is not "strong vs. weak?" but rather those features (structural matching, etc) that you are relying on.

And let's be real, the original comment ("I'd rather put my hand in boiling water than develop a compiler in a dynamic weak typed language"; now flagged) was no more than a drive-by insult.

[mintplant]

> "You can write a compiler in a weakly typed language that resembles a compiler in a strongly typed language." Happy now?

Sure, that's a better claim.

> The point, which you have ignored, is that there are strongly typed languages where the features you're relying on are not present.

There sure are! I don't think I was ever trying to say otherwise.

> In fact, this is true of a bunch of the compilers that are among the most widely used in the world--ones that people are using to build projects written in C and C++ and things like the language support baked into IDEs for Java, C#, etc.

Sorry, I'm having trouble parsing this. Are you referring to compilers of C/C++ here, or compilers written in those languages? The architectures of compilers I've worked with that were built in C++ were specifically on my mind when I wrote my comment.

> And let's be real, the original comment... was no more than a drive-by insult.

I think you're maybe reading too much into me here? I didn't write that comment you're referring to. I responded very narrowly to a claim in the light of a common misconception about how type systems factor into software architecture (namely, that they're don't do anything as long as your code is "correct"). I'm picking up a lot of hostility that I don't think I've earned.