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From: g-frank@gumby.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Strong Typing
Message-ID: <249@gumby.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 10:10:35 EST
Article-I.D.: gumby.249
Posted: Tue Jan 15 10:10:35 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 05:48:23 EST
References: <2673@dartvax.UUCP> <4890@utzoo.UUCP> <247@gumby.UUCP> <369@hercules.UUCP> <6282@boring.UUCP>
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 47

> > You're right. The second view is a European view. Maybe the programmers
> > over there are so bad as to need this sort of thing (at least most of
> > the code I've seen, written by Europeans, is). The first seems to be
> > an American view. Give me #1 any day and let me get the job done...
> 
> I have no intention of contributing to a racist slanging-match, that sort of
> stuff can stay in net.politics. Yes, discipline is inconvenient, but if
> you've got responsibilities, sometimes it's necessary.
> 
> Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam.

   Wrong, Steven.  It's not a racist slanging-match; it's a nationalistic,
jingoistic slanging match.  Nonetheless, you replied to the collective flame
better than I.  Many thanks.

   Interesting question, though:  what code, written by Europeans, has our
correspondent been reading?  I was prompted to go back and look over the
examples in Wirth's book on Modula-2 (second edition), and you know, they're
ALL dreadful.  Was he trying to save paper, or what?  The best way to adver-
tise a new language is to show clean, readable, elegant programs written in
it.  Maybe C hackers like the previous author, who like to work in a good,
muscular, MAN's language, would be a little more open to some others if we
had some better advertisements.

   Programming is such a matter of habit.  Someone used to C, or Fortran
(C is the new Fortran, you know), is mainly afraid of having to undergo the
discomfort of learning something new, and for little obvious benefit.  The
advantages of strongly typed languages have never been sold properly, at
least to an American audience.  Most people who learn these things in college
pick up the popular perception of strong typing as a hassle, as a violation
of their "freedom of expression."  I wasn't joking when I proposed that there
was a cultural difference in responses to programming languages.

   What am I trying to say (what am I trying to say?)?  If those of us
who feel that strong typing is important ever want to be able to preach to
anyone other than the converted, we have to be able to demonstrate an
overwhelming and obvious benefit to potential users.  That's tough.  That
means selling not just the language, but basic concepts of "good" software
engineering.  Is it possible to convince a C hacker that it's better to
do the hard work up front?  Maybe that's less emotionally satisfying than
an overnighter with the debugger.  Maybe it's hopeless.  I've gotta go.


-- 
      Dan Frank

	"good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance."