[email protected] wrote:
greetings all,
I'm in the final weeks of writing up my Masters dissertation and
seeking some scholarly references to Smalltalk being "Strongly Typed."
I my review of Smalltalk I was surprised to find that [1] describes
Smalltalk as Strongly Typed, since Smalltalk is sometimes denigrated
as being untyped / weakly typed. From reviewing discussion forums this
now makes sense, but I can only find one of scholarly reference that
briefly mentions this [2]. The most enlightening is [3] which defines
Type Strength as:
"A strongly typed language prevents any operation on the wrong type of
data. In weakly typed languages there are ways to escape this
restriction: type conversions"
meaning that getting a MNU is a form of Strong Typing since you can't
make a Smalltalk object run a method that is not its own. The problem
appears to be that Strong Typing has been synonymous with Static
Typing for a long time, and Static Typing strongly ties types to
variables, except in Dynamically Typed languages, I think types can be
considered independently from variables, in which case the definition
of [3] has some merit, hence Smalltalk is Strongly Typed.
Sounds controversial, so I'm just hoping for some peer reviewed backup
- but only you have something easily to hand. This is just a small
thing I can just leave out if necessary.
cheers -ben
[1] http://www.squeak.org/Features/
[2] p15,
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.35.7507&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[3] http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/publicaties/rapporten/cw/CW415.pdf
Thank you all for you responses. I am integrating it all into a section
of my report, which I'll paste in a bit for you to pick holes in. I few
quick responses....
I agree with Igor and Camille, statically-typed & strongly-typed should
not be synonyms - but as Esteban says, it is common usage - but I think
that doesn't make it right. I think this is due to statically-typed
languages tightly associating types with variables, whereas types exist
independently from variables.
Milan, To clarify, it doesn't prevent the *error*. What it does is
prevent the *operation*. Since a MNU is produced the specified
operation did not execute. Igor gives a good example of why C is weakl
typed.
Camille, I take your point about defining "Strongly Typed" , which I
will do in my report.
Kilon, I agree with most of you writeup, except that I think Smalltalk
has types - except the types are not associated with variables, rather
they are associated with objects. This aligns with Igor's comment "in
smalltalk, assignment is not copying value, but changing the reference".
Enrico, I will cover Duck Typing, thanks. The implication is, if Duck
Typing applies to Smalltalk, then types *are* part of Smalltalk.
Alain, Thanks for the link. To much to respond to here. Bits should end
up in my report. I found this compelling, as it clarify my own thinking
along the same lines "Statically typed languages assign types to
variables, while dynamically typed languages assign types to values"
Hernan, I disagree that Smalltalk has no types. But they apply to
objects rather than variables, which is where it breaks down for the
explicitly/statically typed crowd.
Carla, I am thinking along those lines. A type groups data and valid
operations.
In non-OO languages, the data and operations are separated, so the type
is associated with a variable, which defines what operations are valid
on the variable, and hence on the data within the variable.
In OO/Smalltalk, the data and operations a combined, so type is
associated with the object, which defines what operations are valid on
the object, and hence the data within the object.
Juan, I agree with your first post that Smalltalk is strongly typed.
Discussing of multi-typed is beyond what I need to consider for my report.
German, That paper states "Smalltalk, although an untype language" but
the goes on to indicate many times that Smalltalk has types eg "subtype
polymorphism of Smalltalk"
I think it is common to say "Smalltalk is untyped" but actually the
correct statement should be "In Smalltalk, the *variables* are untyped"
I'll paste something in more detail soon.
Thanks again. All good points to round out my discussion.
cheers -ben
