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Re: A bit further toward the flamewar
From: |
Andy Wingo |
Subject: |
Re: A bit further toward the flamewar |
Date: |
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:20:27 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.3 (gnu/linux) |
On Thu 13 Oct 2011 16:26, address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
> Hello troll! ;-)
I think that's a bit harsh ;)
> Scheme is strongly, though dynamically typed. A string is a string, a
> number is a number, and they cannot change types anyhow.
As time goes on and I learn more things, I wonder how it is that "type"
has gotten so many conflations. This one certainly has value, but I
guess the CS world uses it in a different way, that types are theorems
about programs. A program that type-checks is has some corresponding
theorem that has a proof, and proving theorems about a program has value
in terms of reliability, &c. (It turns out that it doesn't matter much
which theorems are proven!)
Anyway this second, proof side of types, is the side that Scheme does
not have. C has a stronger story in that regard.
> And of course, this is not to mention the many other ways to shoot
> oneself in the foot–manual memory management being among the most
> prominent
This is what I meant when I said that C was dangerous. Programs in
Guile have meanings, even seemingly ill-formed programs like
((lambda () x))
Because what happens here? You get an exception. What happens in C if
you invoke puts without its argument? You might get a warning, but it
will compile, and at runtime /anything can happen/.
All programs of a sufficient size have bugs. The question is, what
happens when there is a bug? In Scheme, the answer isn't usually "the
Chinese/American/German government gets to read your email". With C it
is. That is why programming in C is dangerous.
Andy
--
http://wingolog.org/
- Why is guile still so slow?, John Lewis, 2011/10/12
- Re: Why is guile still so slow?, rixed, 2011/10/12
- Re: Why is guile still so slow?, Andy Wingo, 2011/10/13
- A bit further toward the flamewar, rixed, 2011/10/13
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Ludovic Courtès, 2011/10/13
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar,
Andy Wingo <=
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Linas Vepstas, 2011/10/13
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Mike Gran, 2011/10/13
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Linas Vepstas, 2011/10/13
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, address@hidden, 2011/10/13
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Ian Price, 2011/10/13
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Andy Wingo, 2011/10/14
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Linas Vepstas, 2011/10/14
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Andy Wingo, 2011/10/17
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Andy Wingo, 2011/10/14
- Re: A bit further toward the flamewar, Linas Vepstas, 2011/10/14