Andre Pang wrote: <snipped> > OK, since you perked my interest in hunting down the interview where he > erred, here it is: > > http://www.artima.com/intv/strongweak.html > > So, this is in January 2003. First, the interviewer, asks: > > Josh Bloch continued, "There's no doubt that you can prototype more > quickly in an environment that lets you get away with murder at compile > time, but I do think the resulting programs are less robust. I think > that to get the most robust programs, you want to do as much static > type checking as possible." > > Note that the phrase "static typing" is explicitly used in the > question. Guido then goes on to respond with the phrase "strong > typing" rather than "static typing":
No, the interviewer quoted Josh Bloch saying static type checking (not static typing) and then went on to ask a question with the term strong typing. > It's obvious that Guido didn't know _jack_ about type systems when he > wrote that article. He even goes on to say: The article was written by Bill Venners with Frank Sommers. > And all the strong typing goes out the door the moment you say, > "Well, we're just going to write a container of Objects, and you'll > have to cast them back to whatever type they really are once you start > using them." Note that in the article Objects is in italics, perhaps to suggest a type, which would then have to be explicitly cast back to the required type. <snipped> > imagination. And, since there's nothing like code to drive the point > home, here's some C++ for Guido to chew on: > > std::vector<int> v; > v.push_back(69); > const int number_retrieved_from_vector = v[0]; // Look, no downcast! > > That's strongly typed and statically typed. Well, from my ten minutes of reading, I would say it isn't strongly typed as the compiler is casting an int to a const int, but I can be pedantic. Wikipedia seems a little confused too, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_typing This link seems to nail it down a bit better, http://www.kagemedia.com/articles.asp?articleID=30 Note: I browse with javascript off (among other things), YMMV. > Look, Guido van Rossum is a programming language designer. If he does > not know his programming language theory well enough to properly > distinguish between static typing and strong typing, I think it's fine > for me to make a judgement call to say "he doesn't know his programming > language theory". If you call that unethical, unprofessional and > disparaging, then it seems we have different definitions of those words. I don't think this list is the place for personal attacks, I always go to slug-chat to make an idiot of myself ... err, others. Cheers, Malcolm V. _______________________________________________ coders mailing list coders@slug.org.au http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/coders
