Re:Linear types can change the world (1990) [pdf]
by kbr on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @07:03PM
(#16111379)
Linear types are different from immutable types. You can change the value of a linear type as long as you used the previous value somewhere else (for example i = i + 1). Languages like Rust leverage affine types (another substructural type system similar to linear type systems) in order to guarantee memory safety.
Re:Linear types can change the world (1990) [pdf]
by GolDDranks on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @07:36PM
(#16111574)
They haven't yet, but they will. Let's wait a few more years.
I think Rust is – at the moment – the biggest language that will usher that change.
It is nor like they are hard or expensive to implement, more like nobody cares and the claim is overblown. Most mistakes in software are in boundary conditions nowadays and not invalid type handling.
Enforcing immutability is great until you get to deal with big number of additional values of immutable types because you cannot modify them. Easy to reason about, bad for performance.