Re: measuring dynamic vs. static typing effectiveness

[Matthias Felleisen <address@hidden>]

On Tuesday, November 25, 2003, at 04:19 PM, Tom Lord wrote:

> It's not very surprising that I can write a "soft checker" for lisp or
> a lisp-like union-type for ML.  What'd be interesting is a
> demonstration of an evironment for either that really subsumes the
> other so well people on both sides say: "well, heck, I'll just use
> that instead."

A simple request, a lot of work. I have been involved with four
dissertations on this topic (the fourth one is coming along) and
I can't say what's good. Just think how large ML's front-end is
compared to the compiler as a whole and that ratio in relation to
other languages. Take a step back and think about how many people
AT&T employed on a full time basis to produce this language (and
what these people failed to deliver). The same is true for our
soft-typers. Ditto for the Cecil "soft typer" (they use a different
terminology).  But if instead of writing the next LL, some of you
want to prove a point, there is always some project you can help
instead. -- Matthias