Why Static Languages Suffer From Complexity (and type-safe printf implementation without macros) (hirrolot.github.io)

submitted 1 year ago by Crazazy@feddit.nl to c/programming_languages@programming.dev

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I think, especially in programming language communities, that there tends to be a preference towards making a static language for their compile time guarantees, and this is a pretty concrete counterargument as to why people find dynamic languages "easier to program in"

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[-] ananas@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

I have mixed feelings about the blog post. I don't think it is wrong per se, but I think this text conflates language features that are orthogonal too much. The initial description of the problem is good, explaining what is meant by inconsistency and feature biformity. But there's a lot of things after that I just don't agree with. Maybe there's some different core assumptions to start with we disagree on.

But in the end, different tools require different features. Programming languages are tools. There's no one-size-fits-all solution to every use case.

I do not understand "counterargument" here either. Counterargument for what? I don't think anyone suggests that choice of typesystem isn't a tradeoff.

[-] Crazazy@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe not here, but I tend to get the feeling that the argument for static typing goes "it may look harder than dynamic types, but it's really not that bad", where as this article shows some more concrete disadvantages of static type systems

[-] ananas@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

There is no meaningful debate if static or dynamic systems are better. It's a tradeoff. And as such, arguments either for or against make little sense if the context about the situation they were designed for is ignored or left ambiguous.

this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023

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