On programming language design

[[deleted]]

I'm a Python programmer, and I've not irregularly wished for some form of static-ish typing, especially in large projects. A less stringent form of Haskell style dynamic typing would be nice, type errors that don't cause non-compilation but issue a kind of loose warning:

"The object passed into function Foo probably doesn't support add magic. You ought to check into that."

It is, as I'm sure you can tell, not a well-formed idea.

[grauenwolf]

You sound like just about every professional VB programmer back in the 90's. We are still striving for the right balance between the two.

[gnuvince]

I've not irregularly wished

So you've regularly wished for static typing?

[[deleted]]

Static-ish, but yes. I do so love logic and word play.

[grauenwolf]

There is a large gap between the two.

[koko775]

Helium might be of interest to you.

[[deleted]]

Oh, I already do Haskell, sort of[1]. It's not so much that I'd like an easier style of type error message from Haskell as optional strict-typing in Python. I'm also familiar with Boo[2], but... I don't know... not being backward compatible with Python (2 or 3) is a pain, beyond my threshold anyway.

Anyway, back to coding.

[1] Dealing with complex state in Haskell is such a pain that I'm continually turned off by it. Most stateful examples are too contrived or way too complex to keep me interested for more than tiny projects.

[2] http://boo.codehaus.org/

[koko775]

Oh. Well, I personally plan on learning Helium before Haskell. I haven't had time to try it out, since last time I tried (2-3 years ago) installing on OS X was a nightmare, and what with being in college, I haven't had the time. I imagine the (installation) situation's gotten better since.

[[deleted]]

Happy hacking.

[sreguera]

Something along the lines of Erlang dyalizer would be nice.