type checking

[Stephen Horne]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 10:42:12 GMT, Alex Martelli <aleaxit at yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Donn Cave wrote:
>
>> Quoth Stephen Horne <$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$@$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.co.uk>:
>> ...
>> | If you really do need static typing (as opposed to simply needing to
>> | get used to the change), Python is simply the wrong choice of
>> | language. Either Java, C# or Delphi may be a good option for you.
>> 
>> Also consider functional languages with strong static typing and
>> type inference - Haskell, Clean, ML, Objective CAML.  Even if they
>> eventually turn out to be unsuitable for the task at hand, they
>> offer an interesting and rigorous abstraction of computer programming.
>
>I'd like to second Donn's recommendation and express reservations
>on Stephen's.  Java &c just don't have a high enough semantic level
>to give you the same productivity as Python.

I suggested C# - _not_ C. That is a very different thing. C# is
probably slightly higher level than Java - though not in Pythons
league, of course.

I made the suggestions I did mostly because I know each of those
languages has a rich set of libraries available. I am far less certain
of the extent of the libraries for functional languages as on the
whole I've only played with them.

A good language can mean big gains, but not necessarily as big as
someone else having written key parts of your application for you in
the form of libraries - and testing them too.

So that, to me, is a key question - which (functional or other)
languages have the richest and most mature libraries (obviously
relevant to sashans requirements), and how do they compare to those
available in Python on the one hand, or Java, C# etc on the other.

An additional issue is familiarity - if sashan is having a hard time
adapting to Python, I suspect he'll find functional languages require
an even bigger paradigm shift. Java and C# require relatively few
mindset adjustments relative to C++.


-- 
Steve Horne

steve at ninereeds dot fsnet dot co dot uk