Static typing and the safety of ignorance
I just saw this quote by Don Roberts and it sums up everything I believe about the absurd belief that bondage and discipline gives you more power in a programming language:
Static types give me the same feeling of safety as the announcement that my seat cushion can be used as a floatation device.
Please place your seat backs and tray tables in the upright position, it’s going to be a bumpy few years.
This entry was posted at 9:03 am on 16 June 2006 and is filed under Programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
My example was always that a parachute is a great safety device, but not when you’re driving a car.
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Hehe, it’s worse than that though. The seat cushion doesn’t prevent you from getting up and going to the bathroom.
Not only do overly static languages provide a false sense of safety, but often a large amount of work on the project becomes working around their restrictive nature.
I still think there’s a place for C, when it comes to performance-intensive stuff, but it’s not my first choice for every application.
A better way to achieve safety is unit tests and code coverage.