Re:38% of bugs at Airbnb could have been prevented by using ...
by Someone on Monday February 11, 2019 @12:20PM
(#19136124)
I think the main reason some people say they prefer dynamically-typed languages is because of a feature that historically correlated quite well with it: they provide almost instant gratification.
There are two parts to that: no required boilerplate (“Hello, world!” shouldn’t require more than twice the number of characters, and requiring a manual compile-link step is a no-no) and low time to first output (who cares that each value carries a hundred or more bits of type info and takes an indirection to access, as long a as that “Hello, world” makes it to the screen in <100ms)
Historical counterexamples to the claim people prefer dynamic typing are the ROM-based Basics of the 8-bit computer era. Statically-typed, but popular, IMO because they ticked both boxes.
There are two parts to that: no required boilerplate (“Hello, world!” shouldn’t require more than twice the number of characters, and requiring a manual compile-link step is a no-no) and low time to first output (who cares that each value carries a hundred or more bits of type info and takes an indirection to access, as long a as that “Hello, world” makes it to the screen in <100ms)
Historical counterexamples to the claim people prefer dynamic typing are the ROM-based Basics of the 8-bit computer era. Statically-typed, but popular, IMO because they ticked both boxes.