As was briefly mentioned, let's keep in mind distinction between dynamic and weak typing. I looked at the link in your post and some things jumped out at me that I just had to respond to (I realize the bog post is not yours personally):
> If you can’t understand it, just rewrite it, after all its just couple of hundred lines, how long can it take you? Whaaaaaat? That's his answer to the problem of understanding loosely typed, dense code? Sure, it's possible to make an impenetrable mess using any language, dynamically typed or not, but usually when I'm having a hard time with something written in Java, it's either because the code is laid out in such a way that it undermines basic OOP principles, including loosening type restrictions, where it shouldn't, or there's some non-trivial flow of control lacking in documentation. The latter, such as asynchronous calls, is not easy to deal with in any language at this time, but documentation is usually the answer. > Code Density in dynamic languages are phenomenal! All of the endless casting, coercing and repetition in declaration simply is not there resulting in very dense code. I smell pure FUD. Even without reified generics, Java hasn't had the need for much of casting in how long now? Especially if you're doing web development and not using Swing, which lacks generified API. > I can see how a dynamic language can be a nightmare if you don’t have tests. This is an interesting statement. I do agree -- testing is important and if you lose static typing, it has to take on extra responsibility. But then let's not compare apples and oranges. Let's not compare code we write in a statically typed language same code in a dynamically typed language. Instead, we should be compared code in a statically typed language against code in a dynamically typed language plus the test code that might not have to be written in the presence of a compiler. Suddenly, it's not so clear where the line should be drawn indicating how much extra test code and time gets put into a dynamically typed environment. And, at the risk of being crass, I couldn't pass this up: > Compilers are great at telling you that you have miss-typed something or that > you assumptions about classes are wrong Touché :) Having English as a second language, I can make fun. Alexey 2001 Honda CBR600F4i (CCS) 2002 Suzuki Bandit 1200S 1992 Kawasaki EX500 http://azinger.blogspot.com http://bsheet.sourceforge.net http://wcollage.sourceforge.net ________________________________ From: ivko3 <ivan.st.iva...@gmail.com> To: The Java Posse <javaposse@googlegroups.com> Sent: Fri, April 23, 2010 9:32:37 AM Subject: [The Java Posse] Re: please explain the desire for a dynamic typing language Hi, I was also wondering why do people make so big fuss around languages like Groovy, [J]Ruby, PHP, etc. Then I got the task for a personal website, and I'm doing it in Java +Spring+JPA + all the stuff around. I want to finish this application very fast (in the next 5 weeks) and I can work on it only during half of the week's nights. As I have a hello-world-experience with groovy and the grails framework, I think that right now I am in position that I would like to have "loved the Groovy" earlier. Because there, especially with the help of Grails, you don't have to write all the boilerplate code. And with a web application that accesses the DB there's a lot of that (think about all the DAOs and stuff). I know that in the Java world Spring are doing something in that direction with Roo, but I would like to have more control than it's offering me. Anyway, that's another topic. Directly to your question. My personal opinion is that you can have very fast results in some mainstream [web-]applications with dynamic languages and frameworks around them. The lack of compiler seems to be a problem, but not quite. Just check this blog: http://misko.hevery.com/2010/04/07/move-over-java-i-have-fallen-in-love-with-javascript Regards, Ivan On Apr 23, 3:57 pm, Robert Casto <casto.rob...@gmail.com> wrote: > I think the issue has to do with features and functionality. They want to be > more productive and with these new languages, you can do that. I think your > concerns are valid though. Unless you are careful, there are plenty of > opportunities for bugs. The new languages do a lot of things better and they > are trying to eliminate the problems you mention. Still, I like being told > about problems at compile time rather than during testing or worse, in > production. I came to Java from C/C++ and enjoyed the garbage collection, > simpler reference handling, and other features. These new languages are much > more productive, but there are always tradeoffs. > > > > On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 2:06 PM, scphantm <scpha...@gmail.com> wrote: > > ive been looking a few languages the past few days, groovy, ruby being > > the big two. i see all over the web people praising the world of > > dynamic type languages and the same question keeps ringing in my head, > > WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU WANT A DYNAMIC TYPING LANGUAGE???? i came > > to java from the VB and PHP world. both of those are dynamically > > typed and it was that one thing that drove me nuts. especially in > > working with teams of developers. when i moved to java and its static > > typing system, everything finally made sense, tweetie birds were > > flying, humming birds were humming around around and i was in love, i > > found a language that is quick and has inherent type checking built in > > at compile time. > > > i just remember the disasters and amount of bugs that occured with me > > in the dark days of (god help me) asp, vbscript, and to an extent PHP > > and don't understand why anyone in their right mind would not want > > their language of choice to be statically typed? ive heard the answer > > of, well its easier, in this case in my mind easy=lazy. i don't get > > it, please educate me. > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "The Java Posse" group. > > To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<javaposse%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- > Robert Castowww.IWantFreeShipping.com > Find Amazon Filler Items easily! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
