RE: Questions for a language designer

["Anton van Straaten" <address@hidden>]

Stéphane Payrard wrote:

> On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 01:16:12PM -0700, Steve Dekorte wrote:
...
> > - Are you in the static or dynamic typing camp?
...
>
> The choice between static and dynamic typing is not an exclusive or.
> Many times, when there are religious battles between polar opposites,
> there is an opportunity for a continuum.

Here's a stab at some of the more conventional decisions in this area:

* Will variables be associated with explicit type declarations?
  * If yes, will these type declarations be required or optional?
    * If optional, will the language use inferencing to supply unspecified
types, or simply use an all-purpose type (like Object or 'any')?

* Will the language have any runtime type discrimination/checking at all, or
will types be completely statically determined?  Some languages considered
statically typed still do some runtime checking, e.g. Java.

* Will any type checking happen at compile time?  Some languages with
explicit type declarations don't always check types at compile time, e.g.
old VB.

Anton