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Re: another take on hackers and painters
At 3:52 PM -0500 5/21/03, Robby Findler wrote:
>At Wed, 21 May 2003 15:44:01 -0400, Dan Sugalski wrote:
>> At 3:34 PM -0400 5/21/03, John Clements wrote:
>> >Put another way: don't you want as much checking as you can
>> >possibly get at acceptable cost?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> >and
>> >
>> >isn't having to write 'string->number' an acceptable cost?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> Which, I expect, will bring the discussion to something of a halt. I
>> don't see it as a general problem. In those circumstances where it
>> is, I use a language that doesn't do it.
>
>Wonderful -- error checking is not a general problem. Lets just make up
>results for strange situations. Trying index outside the bounds of the
>array? No problem, just return some random bits. Trying to pop an empty
>stack? No problem, we'll just guess you probably wanted 0 (or maybe, on
>Tuesday's, for variety, we'll return the null pointer or the empty list
>or false).
>
>In fact, lets get rid of all errors in programs. Up with the DWIM
>instruction! Down with reliability!
I'm going to take a wild guess here that you're not a big fan of
autoconversion...
--
Dan
--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski even samurai
dan@sidhe.org have teddy bears and even
teddy bears get drunk