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Re: in praise of type checking

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On 11-10-06 03:33 AM, Roedy Green wrote:
> I changed the result of a widely used method from boolean to int.  The
> neat thing was the compiler (actually the Intellij syntax checker)
> made sure I fixed up every invocation of that method. It would not let
> me forget even  one. 
> 
> Imagine a language with loosey goosey type checking where it was
> entirely up to you entirely to ensure all the invocations were
> corrected.  You could never be sure.

I'm not sure of the technical meaning of "loosey goosey" type checking:
I expect you mean a mishmash of dynamic typing + weak typing, maybe more
so the weak typing aspect, but you'd have to explain. Or perhaps you
mean type safety, which is different yet again - dynamic typing can
absolutely be type safe, for example.

Having said that, I don't myself see the awfulness inherent in *me*
having to check that all the uses of a changed method are still correct.
For at least the first 25 years of my programming career this is what I
did anyway, on the hopefully rare occasions that I'd make such a change
well into coding. After all, there were not that many IDEs available to
do the grunt work [1].

Also, in which circumstances would you be willing to change the return
type of a method in such a significant way (boolean to int is profound)
and _not_ manually (visually and individually) check each and every call
site yourself? How can you just leave it up to the IDE to do the
refactoring, and report back simply that code will continue to compile?

AHS

1. I leave aside the argument that a comprehensive set of command-line
tools or something like Emacs *is* an IDE also.
-- 
I tend to watch a little TV... Court TV, once in a while. Some of the
cases I get interested in.
-- O. J. Simpson

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in praise of type checking Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-10-05 23:33 -0700
  Re: in praise of type checking Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-10-06 06:43 -0700
    Re: in praise of type checking Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net> - 2011-10-06 09:52 -0700
    Re: in praise of type checking Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-10-07 12:43 -0700
      Re: in praise of type checking Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-10-07 14:57 -0700
      Re: in praise of type checking Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-10-07 20:18 -0400
  Re: in praise of type checking Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2011-10-06 22:31 +0200
    Re: in praise of type checking Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-10-07 12:36 -0700
      Re: in praise of type checking Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2011-10-08 16:05 +0200
        Re: in praise of type checking Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-10-08 09:35 -0700
          Re: in praise of type checking Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2011-10-11 07:48 +0200
            Re: in praise of type checking Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-10-11 13:04 -0700
            Re: in praise of type checking Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-10-11 17:52 -0300
              Re: in praise of type checking Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-10-12 01:49 +0100
                Re: in praise of type checking Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-10-11 19:12 -0700
            Re: in praise of type checking Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-10-11 19:10 -0700
  Re: in praise of type checking Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-10-06 20:29 -0400
    Re: in praise of type checking Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2011-10-06 23:56 -0700
      Re: in praise of type checking Gunter Herrmann <notformail0106@earthlink.net> - 2011-10-07 13:57 -0400
  Re: in praise of type checking Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-10-07 07:19 -0300
    Re: in praise of type checking Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-10-07 12:39 -0700
      Re: in praise of type checking Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-10-07 15:03 -0700
        Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-10-11 19:26 +0100
          Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2011-10-12 01:15 -0500
            Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Travers Naran <tnaran@gmail.com> - 2011-10-12 07:23 -0700
            Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-10-12 20:04 +0000
            Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-10-12 13:53 -0700
              Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2011-10-12 16:55 -0500
                Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-10-12 15:02 -0700
                Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2011-10-13 00:08 -0500
                Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-10-13 07:48 -0300
                Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking "John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2011-10-14 07:09 -0400
                Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-10-12 22:03 +0000
            Re: Space probes was Re: in praise of type checking Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-10-14 14:14 +0100
  Re: in praise of type checking RedGrittyBrick <RedGrittyBrick@spamweary.invalid> - 2011-10-07 11:50 +0100
    Re: in praise of [loosey goosey] type checking) RedGrittyBrick <RedGrittyBrick@spamweary.invalid> - 2011-10-07 12:20 +0100
  Re: in praise of type checking Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-10-07 14:00 +0000

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