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0 pointsd3ckard2y ago0 comments

I believe this as well. I like dynamic typing, because it often feels to me that rigour of static typing is slowing the prototyping phase. Plus overusing types creates a lot of boilerplate. In one of the frontends I've seen adding a boolean field to a form required changing over 10 files - thank you Typescript.

On the other hand, sometimes I feel like it has a lot to do with test writing. I feel people enjoy static typing, because you can get a feedback loop catching certain things without writing any tests. If you do write tests, all the type errors get caught pretty immediately anyway, so I just don't see the benefit.

Personally, the biggest advantage of dynamic typing for me is the ability to skip formalities for a time. If I want a function that can modify any struct with field "val" in (by, let's say, setting it to zero), I can - and I don't have to do multiple definitions, I don't have to define an interface. Just a function and I am done. If I want to skip error handling for now and only code the happy path, I can - and my program will work (and crash on error, but in some cases it's ok).

As the projects get more complex and require higher safety guarantees, static typing helps in ensuring nothing got broken - but nothing beats dynamic typing for prototyping.

0 comments

spion2y ago

The example is, interestingly possible in TypeScript, at a very cheap cost

  function modifiesValField(struct: {val: number}) {
    struct.val = 0;
  }

Structural types and inline interfaces (or as I like to call them inyourfaces) are pretty cool.

But I do get your point - although type systems have gotten much less annoying, its not like they're perfect.

IggleSniggle2y ago

I do think types and tests have a lot of overlap. In an ideal system, you would have tests that result in progressively more narrow types as each test case is added, providing the benefit of both.

This is basically the entire reason I am so excited about Zig.

Edit: it's also the reason I have a love/hate relationship with typescript. Typescript almost lets you do this if you try really hard, but at the end of the day it's not designed to truly test your code and requires you to "cheat" in order to make the types properly describe the situation; every time you "cheat" in order to get a more expressive type (whether that's looser or narrower), you would have been better off writing a test instead.

j1elo2y ago

> If you do write tests, all the type errors get caught pretty immediately anyway, so I just don't see the benefit.

That's a pretty big if, though. You will never catch me in my typed backyard, writing tests that say: if typeof(arg) =! string then return error("Not a string!")

An additional problem of course is that solutions that assume extra work from people, tend to be brittle ones (also thinking about "manual backups" here) aka. those tests will end not being written at all.

d3ckardOP2y ago

You will never find me in my dynamic backyard writing such tests neither - I will write normal tests and they still expose type errors.

And, if you do not write tests, there is a bunch of other problems that will surface, which will not be caught by the compiler itself. What I'm saying is static types give you feedback loop:

write code -> make the project compile -> fix bugs

while the dynamic ones give you:

write code -> fix bugs (including type ones).

Obviously, YMMV. For me it works. And to be honest, from my experience nothing is more brittle than a type hierarchy designed early in project lifetime and then fixed repeatedly until it "works", but again - to each their own.

sodapopcan2y ago

You shouldn’t be writing that in dynamic languages anyway.

mejutoco2y ago

I mostly agree with you. Just wanted to add that in some languages, for example in Typescript, there are ways to say that you do not care about the type for prototyping. For example using :unknown or :any.

IggleSniggle2y ago

:unknown is great, but the problems come in the middle area; when you have lots of very tight types and are prototyping something that makes use of those things, :unknown doesn't work, and :any can be too expressive, even for your prototype.

cloverich2y ago

> when you have lots of very tight types

This is true. But also I've noticed many less experienced TS devs end up writing types that are too specific and not utilizing structural typing enough. So e.g. writing some type and demanding a function accept it, when that function only actually needs one or two properties from it. Instead that function can inline or localize the part of the type it needs, and the original type can be unaware its ever being used by some other function.

And the other thing is trying to leverage the type system too much. For my style, if the types aren't making things easier to read, write, and maintain, they should be loosened and / or duplicated. I blame a lot of libraries here, it should never be puzzling to figure out how to type something so a function accepts it, yet that comes up quite often; I end up diving through these nested and overly DRY types trying to find what the heck even is this thing? That's crazy. If you need to cmd+click more than once or twice to understand what a type is, its way too abstracted.

mejutoco2y ago

Sorry, but that is moving the goalposts. Quick prototyping was mentioned, but now we seem to be talking about some undefined balance between typing and no typing for prototyping. It seems :any solves the problem.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsd3ckard2y ago0 comments

As the projects get more complex and require higher safety guarantees, static typing helps in ensuring nothing got broken - but nothing beats dynamic typing for prototyping.

0 comments

spion2y ago

The example is, interestingly possible in TypeScript, at a very cheap cost

  function modifiesValField(struct: {val: number}) {
    struct.val = 0;
  }

Structural types and inline interfaces (or as I like to call them inyourfaces) are pretty cool.

But I do get your point - although type systems have gotten much less annoying, its not like they're perfect.

IggleSniggle2y ago

I do think types and tests have a lot of overlap. In an ideal system, you would have tests that result in progressively more narrow types as each test case is added, providing the benefit of both.

This is basically the entire reason I am so excited about Zig.

j1elo2y ago

> If you do write tests, all the type errors get caught pretty immediately anyway, so I just don't see the benefit.

That's a pretty big if, though. You will never catch me in my typed backyard, writing tests that say: if typeof(arg) =! string then return error("Not a string!")

d3ckardOP2y ago

You will never find me in my dynamic backyard writing such tests neither - I will write normal tests and they still expose type errors.

And, if you do not write tests, there is a bunch of other problems that will surface, which will not be caught by the compiler itself. What I'm saying is static types give you feedback loop:

write code -> make the project compile -> fix bugs

while the dynamic ones give you:

write code -> fix bugs (including type ones).

sodapopcan2y ago

You shouldn’t be writing that in dynamic languages anyway.

mejutoco2y ago

IggleSniggle2y ago

cloverich2y ago

> when you have lots of very tight types

mejutoco2y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse