On 6/2/2011 6:11 AM, James Grahn wrote:
On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 3:06 AM, Peter Firmstone<j...@zeus.net.au>
wrote:
Are you suggesting type safety is NOT a necessary language feature
in distributed code?
Not at all.
One of the big questions in O-O language design is the extent and timing
of type checking. At one extreme, we have Java that does many checks at
compile time. At the other extreme, some languages take the view that if
an object has a method that method can be called, regardless of any types.
However, type safety is not a feature which is the exclusive terrain
of the compiler. With the force of sufficient reasoning, type safe
code can be written without the compiler's explicit blessing.
Personally, I find it easier to produce solid code in languages that do
compile time type checking to the extent that is possible, remembering
Rice's theorem. I like Java. However, there are situations in which
checking can only be done at run time, and some of those situations will
arise in River.
Patricia
