Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Matthias Blume]

Pascal Costanza <costanza at web.de> writes:

> ...because static type systems work by reducing the expressive power
> of a language.

It depends a whole lot on what you consider "expressive".  In my book,
static type systems (at least some of them) work by increasing the
expressive power of the language because they let me express certain
intended invariants in a way that a compiler can check (and enforce!)
statically, thereby expediting the discovery of problems by shortening
the edit-compile-run-debug cycle.

> (Now you could argue that current sophisticated type systems cover 90%
> of all cases and that this is good enough, but then I would ask you
> for empirical studies that back this claim. ;)

In my own experience they seem to cover at least 99%.

(And where are _your_ empirical studies which show that "working around
language restrictions increases the potential for bugs"?)

Matthias