I think better type inferencing may bring strong typing back in vogue.
I think what really makes programming in a "dynamic" language significantly more pleasant is not having to type (on the keyboard) type (int, Object, etc.) declarations. A strictly, statically typed language with a good type inferencing engine, like Scala or Haskell, makes a lot of this go away.
I understand (though don't have enough experience to verify) that there are times that the type inferencing occasionally makes things harder when you get a type error and can't identify its source. But certainly a win overall compared to explicit types everywhere.
Re:Object Oriented Programming has Failed Us
by greendestiny on Monday June 02, 2008 @07:16AM
(#206615)
Wasn't really my point, I just took the diversion to talk about static typing. If static typing comes back as the thing I think C++ will still be crap. I think the productivity gains in the language I mentioned have everything to do with built in list types, first class functions, closures and anonymous functions. Good libraries built on those things help a lot as well.
Anyone who experienced the C->C++ transition can tell horror stories about problems due to the (ab)use of C's type system in real code...and C wasn't even that weak! Even Perl coders have learned this lesson the hard way (hence the introduction of "use strict"). But I digress.
Maybe you're right, and strong typing doesn't matter that much for the new generation of apps. My instinct however, is that the current hipness of dynamic typing is a (somewhat justified) over-reaction to the ugliness of C++. Meanwhile, a lot of babies are being thrown out with a little bit of bathwater....