Alan Green: Typing: Safety causes Bugs.
Hmmm. Well, I've been using a mixture of Python and Java for some time now, so here is my personal conjecture:
I don't think that the extra typing required by 'safety' features actually cause bugs - they just don't stop them. Or rather, the ones that they stop are balanced by the additional ones that they introduce. For every time Java saves me from using a String as an int, I'll get a runtime error casting something around in order to get to a method that I know damn well it has, even if the bloody compiler doesn't.
In Python, if an object has a method, I can just call it. Thank you. If this isn't going to work, I'll find out while testing.
Ah yes, testing. That's where you stop bugs. Static typing might have pointed you at a few bugs a little earlier than your testing would have, but your testing would have picked them up soon enough. And if you don't test properly, your stuff is going to be buggy anyway.
The so called 'safety' features are only going to catch a subset of problems, and you would have found these problems eventually anyway. So if they add too much work at the coding stage, they are a net time loss.
Cameron Laird and Kathryn Soraiz's Syntax Checking the Scripting Way is interesting on this. And I'm reminded of a quotation:
The static people talk about rigorously enforced interfaces, correctness proofs, contracts, etc. The dynamic people talk about rigorously enforced testing and say that types only catch a small portion of possible errors. The static people retort that they don't trust tests to cover everything or not have bugs and why write tests for stuff the compiler should test for you, so you shouldn't rely on only tests, and besides static types don't catch a small portion, but a large portion of errors. The dynamic people say no program or test is perfect and static typing is not worth the cost in language complexity and design difficulty for the gain in eliminating a few tests that would have been easy to write anyway, since static types catch a small portion of errors, not a large portion. The static people say static types don't add that much language complexity, and it's not design "difficulty" but an essential part of the process, and they catch a large portion, not a small portion. The dynamic people say they add enormous complexity, and they catch a small portion, and point out that the static people have bad breath. The static people assert that the dynamic people must be too stupid to cope with a real language and rigorous requirements, and are ugly besides.
This is when both sides start throwing rocks.
Quinn Dunkan, 13 Jul 2001
Posted to Software development by Simon Brunning at February 07, 2003 03:14 PM