Typing system vs. Java

[Alex Martelli]

"Peter Milliken" <peter.milliken at gtech.com> wrote in message
news:9k4l5c$o985 at news1.gtech.com...
    ...

> Once
> you have used a truly strongly typed language, then you would never
consider
> doing a large job (multiple programmers) in anything else. I love and use

False!  I *have* used "truly strongly typed languages" (such as Haskell),
yet I DO regularly consider doing large multi-programmers tasks in many
other languages (typically a mixture of languages: C++ for crucial low
level components and accelerators, SQL for the storage and retrieval
parts for which SQL is so eminently suitable, Python for 80% to 90% of
the code, i.e., everything which doesn't require C++'s speed and
can't benefit from SQL's specialized nature).

As the world is chock full of people who HAVE used "truly strongly
typed languages" (Pascal and variants, Ada, Eiffel, Sather, Haskell,
ML and variants, and so on) and then have moved on to, not just
"considering", but actively choosing, very different languages for
very large multi-programmers tasks (C++, Java, Python, Smalltalk,
Lisp, Erlang, and so on), your assertion is clearly false and quite
misleading as you've stated it.  Recast it in the first person
singular, and it may correctly be taken as a reflection on _your_
particular quirks and foibles:-).


Alex