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“The days of using untyped languages on non-trivial projects are over.”

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Re: “The days of using untyped languages on non-trivial projects are over.”

#111

Post by dylanowen »

tacotacotaco wrote: post #106
thewix wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My world changed when I started thinking in a strongly typed way (not just using string and number) and representing state changes as different types rather than interpreting than through property values. Once you do that then your code becomes mapping from one type to the next. For example, if `type ShoppingCart = EmptyCart | LoadedCart` then `addToCart` is just a map from `ShoppingCart` to `LoadedCart`. It makes in…

I am not against types but I do find typescript’s type system to be deficient. Additionally, functional programming is not incompatible with type systems but typescript’s type system in particular makes it more difficult. Several of the terrible typescript projects I referred to still used property values to represent state (like your example). Just because every definition has a type doesn’t make it good code. Shitt…

I'm curious which part you find deficient? It's biggest downside is probably being Turing complete but that doesn't make it deficient, rather it's too easy for devs to code incomprehensible types with it.

Re: “The days of using untyped languages on non-trivial projects are over.”

#112

Post by wryanzimmerman »

lisasays wrote: post #105
happymellon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally found that Python with types is just not quite enough if I have to work with other people.

Yup, it can really suck, this working other people thing. But can you elaborate or provide some examples, please? I'd like to know more about this angle.

My guess is he’s referring to the way that types are fundamentally optional no-op statements in python, and therefore the level of “typing” in a given project is necessarily opinion-driven and can only be enforced through building up a lot of tooling, like making sure a type checker passes or fails all code going into deployment or CI. And even in the best case, types are duct-taped on, so there is no such thing as “perfectly type-safe”

So as soon as you have two developers on one project, you have two different opinions about it.

Re: “The days of using untyped languages on non-trivial projects are over.”

#113

Post by wryanzimmerman »

sublinear wrote: post #6

Typescript propaganda. Instead of worrying about types, why not worry about the actual code quality ? Half of all typescript I've seen uses "any", not to mention the fact that it obsfuscates what's actually running in the browser and forces an unnecessary build step for things that aren't "web apps".

“Any” is a switch to disable typescript.

So if you’re using it, you aren’t really using typescript, you’re disabling typescript and saying “I want to write this part in plain JavaScript.”

Re: “The days of using untyped languages on non-trivial projects are over.”

#114

Post by khalidx »

One useful thing I’ve found with typed languages is that I end up implementing the entire specification for a program in the type system even before writing a single line of actual working code.

Makes it easy to fix and refactor things early on and improve things from a developer experience and interface perspective.

I push implementing a function as far out as possible, when the entire structure of the program becomes clear.

This hack easily makes me 10x more productive. Plus I don’t share the same annoyances with types and TypeScript for example that other devs face. Once it’s set up (just adding a tsconfig file and a package file) the type system just sort of disappears — I mean, I rarely fight with it.

I do agree though that most of the complaints with these systems, languages, and tools really come from the vast amount of competing “getting started” and build guides that always seem to get out of date or use some radical new way of doing things that upsets the whole ecosystem. There have been so many changes in this regard. That, I will say, I don’t have an answer for.

Re: “The days of using untyped languages on non-trivial projects are over.”

#115

Post by d13 »

sublinear wrote: post #6

Typescript propaganda. Instead of worrying about types, why not worry about the actual code quality ? Half of all typescript I've seen uses "any", not to mention the fact that it obsfuscates what's actually running in the browser and forces an unnecessary build step for things that aren't "web apps".

I agree, I’ll take JavaScript over TypeScript any day. I work on massive codebases and have never had bug related to type safety, or any issues scaling.

Re: “The days of using untyped languages on non-trivial projects are over.”

#117

Post by mattmcknight »

deterministic wrote: post #116
mattmcknight wrote: post #11

Meanwhile untyped languages keep expanding the boundaries of what is considered a trivial project.

Not my experience. Do you have any examples?

Ruby on Rails? I've built apps that have been running for years in a couple of weeks. If you have a very logical structure, the types take care of themselves.
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