Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by f1shy 524 days ago
I seem to be the only one in HN and maybe the world, who worked with decent enough codebases where dynamic typing was no problem at all.

Not that I “feel” it was no problem, but there were no bugs found that could be traces down to that.

It was not a small codebase.
1 comments
iLemming 523 days ago
It's not just that. Static types do help, yet dismissing an entire language because of a single aspect of it is extremely short-sighted. It's like rejecting Russian or Turkish, only because they have no concept of definite or indefinite articles.

Sure, Clojure is dynamically typed, but it is also strongly typed. That in practice means that for example Clojurescript when compiling to Javascript enforces those type guarantees, sometimes emitting safer code than even statically typed Typescript cannot.

link
f1shy 523 days ago
That is exactly my feeling, like lately everything must be “safe” and statically typed. While I do see some (big, sure) pros I see also some cons that I feel are systematically ignored or neglected. For me it seems to be a kind of fade/hype… but maybe I’m just connected to the wrong news feeds.
link
iLemming 523 days ago
> maybe I’m just connected to the wrong news feeds

I don't think so. It's just like said in another comment:

For everything, there's a trade-off. Some just accept those trade-offs, build their vision, and launch it into the world; Some waste time, lamenting that reality doesn't align with their ideals.

Static typing works - just like formal methods, just like dependent types, just like unit testing, just like generative testing, just like many other different ideas and techniques. They each have their own place and use cases, strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons. Picking one single paradigm, technique, design pattern, or methodology - no matter how amazingly powerful they are - and just dogmatizing and fetishizing it is simply immature. Reaching the point where you clearly understand that there are truly no silver bullets and everything is about making compromises is a sign of professional growth and true, genuine experience.

link