What is Expressiveness in a Computer Language

[John Thingstad]

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 20:11:22 +0200, Anton van Straaten  
<anton at appsolutions.com> wrote:

> rossberg at ps.uni-sb.de wrote:
>>>> In this context, the term "latently-typed language" refers to the
>>>> language that a programmer experiences, not to the subset of that
>>>> language which is all that we're typically able to formally define.
>>   That language is not a subset, if at all, it's the other way round,  
>> but
>> I'd say they are rather incomparable. That is, they are different
>> languages.
>
> The "subset" characterization is not important for what I'm saying.  The  
> fact that they are different languages is what's important.  If you  
> agree about that, then you can at least understand which language I'm  
> referring to when I say "latently-typed language".
>
> Besides, many dynamically-typed languages have no formal models, in  
> which case the untyped formal model I've referred to is just a  
> speculative construct.  The language I'm referring to with  
> "latently-typed language" is the language that programmers are familiar  
> with, and work with.
>
>>> That is starting to get a bit too mystical for my tastes.
>>   I have to agree.
>>  \sarcasm One step further, and somebody starts calling C a "latently
>> memory-safe language", because a real programmer "knows" that his code
>> is in a safe subset... And where he is wrong, dynamic memory page
>> protection checks will guide him.
>
> That's a pretty apt comparison, and it probably explains how it is that  
> the software we all use, which relies so heavily on C, works as well as  
> it does.
>
> But the comparison critiques the practice of operating without static  
> guarantees, it's not a critique of the terminology.
>
> Anton

Actually I have never developed a C/C++ program
without a bounds checker the last 15 years.
It checks all memory references and on program shutdown
checks for memory leaks. What is it about you guys that make you blind
to these fact's. Allocation problem's haven't really bugged me at all
since forever. Now debugging fluky templates on the other hands..
But then debugging Lisp macro's isn't much better.

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