Re:IT Runs on Java 8
by dragonwriter on Friday May 10, 2019 @08:45PM
(#19883657)
> If you argue that C has static types, then I guess you're probably right.
C (like C++) is both statically and weakly typed; strong and static typing are orthogonal axes (dynamic but strongly typed languages are common.) If you mean strong and static when you say static, you need to take C++ off your list.
No, it's (mostly) not about that.
It's about C not having any generics or similar things (like C++ templates), so you need to fall back way more often on void*.
So on that axis Go is roughly as statically typed as C, albeit more strongly typed.
On the other hand C++ is more statically typed than C, but is about as strongly typed (afaik).
> I'd be surprised if more than half (most) developers using static typing use those languages and not others outside that set.
Really? I'd be surprised if it was less than 90%. What is the competition? Go, TypeScript, Swift, Scala, Kotlin, Rust (in rough order of my gut sense for how widely used they currently are)? These are all still very small relative to C++, Java, C#.
If you argue that C has static types, then I guess you're probably right. But it isn't really true that C has static types in the contemporary sense (which I think is perhaps better referred to as "strong" type safety).