Re: Pointers to "why C behaves like that ?"

"Roman Shaposhnick" <vugluskr@unicorn.math.spbu.ru> writes:


>On 24 Nov 2002 18:38:19 -0500, Joachim Durchholz wrote:
>>Hindley-Milner typing is simple and efficient.
>
> But I suppose they require all pieces of code that has anything
> to do with "a" to be available at once. Note, that we're not
> talking about interpretation, but rather about translation.
>
> Indeed, environments like Oberon or Java can tackle such problems
> ( though not always with ease ), but the trouble with them is
> that they effectively make themselves a lowest common denominator,
> for the programmer, and I'm really against it. Since in my opinion
> hardware is supposed to be your lowest common denominator.
>
> So, what I'm really saying is, that while dynamic typing is great
> in theory, I have yet to see a nice practical implementation,
> suitable for big software projects.


I don't understand what you are getting at here.


Firstly, your terminology is confusing -- Joachim was talking about
languages which support automatic compile-time type inference, such as
Haskell, Ocaml, and Mercury, not about languages with dynamic
(run-time) typing, such as Lisp, Perl, and Prolog.


Secondly, I don't understand what you mean by Oberon or Java making
themselves a lowest common denominator. Are you unsatisfied with the
ability of these languages to interface with other languages? I don't
know about Oberon's support for this, but Java certainly supports
interfacing with other languages. Likewise Haskell, Ocaml, and
Mercury all support interfacing with other languages.


IMHO languages like Haskell, Ocaml, and Mercury are very suitable for
big software projects. These languages all have module systems and
have implementations with at least some degree of support for separate
compilation. Furthermore, they have quite sophisticated mechanisms for
code reuse, which is invaluable for big software projects. The support
for automatic type inference in these language scales well.


--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au> | "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne | of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.

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