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Have Static Languages Won?

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Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#41

Post by acbart »

I don't know, I'm taking a Program Analysis graduate seminar this semester, and my take is that the techniques for dynamic analysis are getting halfway decent.

It's also interesting to compare Python and JavaScript. Holkner and Harland did a pair of papers about those two communities' usage of dynamic typing - JS people do type changes throughout the program execution, but after initialization the Python people follow the Aycock quote: "Giving people a dynamically-typed language does not mean that they write dynamically-typed programs." Languages have different characteristic programs, to some degree.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#42

Post by nrinaudo »

coldtea wrote: post #29
realharo wrote: post #8

> You can have statically compiled languages that use type inference to realize what is effectively dynamic typing. Just because you don't have to explicitly write out the type does not make it any less static. I believe that the usual arguments against languages with static typing such as verbosity and lack of flexibility are largely eliminated by the more modern languages such as Scala, Kotlin or Typescript (though…

> Just because you don't have to explicitly write out the type does not make it any less static. No, but not having to write the type was one of the biggest attractions of dynamic languages -- a lot of us didn't care that much for being fully dynamic, but just enjoyed the less ceremony of dynamic languages. As for not having to commit to types for some cases, STL languages can also have a "void *" or "variant" or "dy…

There is one other undeniable advantage to dynamic languages: you can express things in a dynamic language that you can't in a static one. Static languages try to be as sound as possible, at the cost of some completeness. Dynamic languages are less concerned with soundness and can be more complete.

As an example, duck typing is usually not possible to achieve in a static language - it's really hard to allow duck typing and remain sound (I don't actually know that it's possible, but I'm not sure either way).

Having said that, I'm firmly of the opinion that static languages are much, much easier to write in and maintain once you get the hang of whatever type system they use, and the loss of completeness is acceptable for all the benefits they bring.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#43

Post by tachyonbeam »

realharo wrote: post #8

> You can have statically compiled languages that use type inference to realize what is effectively dynamic typing. Just because you don't have to explicitly write out the type does not make it any less static. I believe that the usual arguments against languages with static typing such as verbosity and lack of flexibility are largely eliminated by the more modern languages such as Scala, Kotlin or Typescript (though…

It's not just "not having to write out the type". It's that the compiler can automatically insert typed unions to make the typing dynamic where you need it. If a variable can have different types at different times, that's dynamic typing.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#44

Post by johngossman »

It might be an interesting contest to find the earliest reference to this debate. It isn't quite what I was looking for, but I found this short comparison of programming languages from 1972 amusing: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/1972002...

For example, this quote from the conclusion: "The possibility of standardization of computer languages is still remote, and in the author's opinion will remain so until standardization in hardware applied to standard problems is first achieved"

Are we there yet?

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#45

Post by jayvanguard »

azaras wrote: post #4

An alternative is optional static languages like Groovy or alternatives like python Type Hints ( https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0484/ ) are better than pure dynamic languages.

I agree, I think optional or gradual typing is the future for dynamic languages.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#46

Post by mcv »

Static Languages won? That's not just a bit premature; it's bizarre. Several of the most popular and effective languages at the moment are dynamic: Python, Javascript, Ruby, PHP, all the LISP derivatives.

I don't doubt that lots of new static languages have popped up, but how many people actually use those? Plenty of people use static languages, true, but those are mostly the old ones: Java, C, C++, C#, and Haskell and Scala.

Any claim that this has been settled by some new languages nobody is using is bizarre.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#47

Post by mugsie »

coldtea wrote: post #26
agentultra wrote: post #15

I hoped to have debunked, though not thoroughly, the myth that dynamic languages cannot scale to power large projects in my recent talk at Pycon CA. Just take a look at Openstack. It's powering clouds in CERN and Yahoo! Japan where it provides the infrastructure for delivering earthquake notifications to the public -- a valuable and critical service! And it's written largely in Python. It does rely on systems written…

> I hoped to have debunked, though not thoroughly, the myth that dynamic languages cannot scale to power large projects in my recent talk at Pycon CA. Just take a look at Openstack. It's powering clouds in CERN and Yahoo! Japan where it provides the infrastructure for delivering earthquake notifications to the public -- a valuable and critical service! And it's written largely in Python. That doesn't say much in itse…

>That doesn't say much in itself though. Such infrastructure for "earthquake notification" could just be a few thousand lines or even mostly "glue" code.

https://github.com/openstack/neutron

I assure you that OpenStack is a little more than "glue" code.

Not sure what part of OpenStack is written in a STL, but the vast majority of its hundreds of thousands of lines of code is python.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#48

Post by rwmj »

nrinaudo wrote: post #42
coldtea wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because you don't have to explicitly write out the type does not make it any less static. No, but not having to write the type was one of the biggest attractions of dynamic languages -- a lot of us didn't care that much for being fully dynamic, but just enjoyed the less ceremony of dynamic languages. As for not having to commit to types for some cases, STL languages can also have a "void *" or "variant" or "dy…

There is one other undeniable advantage to dynamic languages: you can express things in a dynamic language that you can't in a static one. Static languages try to be as sound as possible, at the cost of some completeness. Dynamic languages are less concerned with soundness and can be more complete. As an example, duck typing is usually not possible to achieve in a static language - it's really hard to allow duck typi…

OCaml has duck typing for objects (strictly speaking it is "structural typing").

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#49

Post by alexwebb2 »

exo762 wrote: post #21
bshimmin wrote: post #13

Well, there's plenty of controversy in this one, but I think Compared to CS students, the average web developer is not as passionate about programming, and not as skilled a programmer. ...probably takes the biscuit; I'm not even sure where to start with it really, apart from my complete failure to understand how "web developers" and "CS students" are supposed to be two distinct groups which are able to be compared.

Anecdotally, on my year around 75% of students were there just because CS was supposed to bring money. They've started CS studies while not knowing how to program, knowing nothing about operating systems or caring. For them it was a 9-17 future job, nothing more.

First time I've ever heard a 9-5 job called a "9-17" job. Decided to Google it to see how common it was, and all the results are for the Bible verse Job 9:17 -

> He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason.

Seems appropriate for some "9-17" jobs.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#50

Post by rwmj »

agentultra wrote: post #15

I hoped to have debunked, though not thoroughly, the myth that dynamic languages cannot scale to power large projects in my recent talk at Pycon CA. Just take a look at Openstack. It's powering clouds in CERN and Yahoo! Japan where it provides the infrastructure for delivering earthquake notifications to the public -- a valuable and critical service! And it's written largely in Python. It does rely on systems written…

OpenStack is the perfect example of how Python doesn't work well for larger projects. It's only because of an absolutely massive investment in testing that OpenStack works at all. I think it's more accurate to say that OpenStack works despite an unsuitable choice for implementation language.
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