"Although the .NET vs. Java war is basically over for control of the Windows desktop, where .NET is sure to become the managed language of choice for new Windows desktop applications, there is a new battle brewing. That battle is for the Linux desktop. Now that Java has been open sourced under the GPL, even the most strict of the 'free software only' distributions can start bundling it and integrating it into their Linux distributions out of the box."
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-07-30
I feel that both, static and dynamic typing, can be a pain if they're forced on you. That's a problem that I encountered in C++ for example:
I'm writing some sort of function and don't yet know what sort of input it's going to take but I need some sort of temp variable. Problem: I need to declare the variable AND it's type at the same time - all squeezed into one tiny statement. Yes, I know there are templates but they're just a pain in the a**!
On the other hand, sometimes you WANT to give type information. As a comment, to increase performance and, last but not least, for polymorphism types are imho essential.
But they should be dynamic so that you could e.g. first use something as a vector with vector addition and multiplication and then use it as a list like this:
my a, b
a=(1, 2, 3)
b=(-1, 1, 0)
(a, b) are vectors
a+=b // a is now (0, 3, 3)
a/=3 // a is now (0, 1, 1)
(a, b) are lists
a+=b // a is now (0, 1, 1, -1, 1, 0)
That'd be sweet!
Member since:2005-06-29
Some statically typed languages are introducing inferred types which you might find interesting (although I think you'd need to be dilligent in replacing their use once you're done experimenting). C# is an example, I believe in 3.0 the "var" keyword now means to use an inferred type.
Member since:2005-06-29
Static type checking is a minor general form of testing. By giving it up you're simply adding one more test onto your unit test requirements... I see no reason to rewrite this over and over when general algorithms have been _mathematically proven_.
You admit you're going to test the typing anyway so why not just have the compiler do it?
As I pointed out before, Python has a similar tool: PyChecker. You might try reading posts before you spout off self-righteously as if we told you your favorite language was bad, which I don't think anyone has.
Python is one of my favorite languages, I use it quite often. And not just on tiny problems.
Member since:2005-06-29
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces."But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Member since:
2005-06-29
Static type checking is overrated. And does almost nothing to alleviate software complexity or reduce bugs in typical software programs. When was the last time a type error brought a project to a hault? In my experience writing programs with both statically and dynamically typed languages, type errors have been the least of my concerns. And I only realized that after writing a medium scale project in a dynamically typed languages.
What static type checking does is give impressionable developers a false sense of security. The reality is that disasterous bugs in software are only found via testing. Unit automated testing, regression testing, user testing and manual testing are the scientifically proven ways to ferret out bugs in software, not fanatically checking data types whether or not it makes sense. Type errors are cheap to discover and fix in about every language I know. Python, in particular, points you to exact function and line a possible type error may have occurred, albeit during testing.
The errors most developers have nightmares over are the ones related to design, semantics, threading (race condition, dead locks, etc), inadequate understanding of the problem space or inexperience, bugs in third party libraries, poor or lack of documentation among many others. I have yet to a see a developers grow gray hair over type errors.
Static typing is something smart compilers should manage for programs. In fact, some smart compilers already do that. Haskell's compiler has an impressive inference engine that many statically typed languages should emulate. The single significant advantage of static typing is optimization and performance tuning. Errors with respect to types are almost always insignificant and cheap to discover. A programmer's greatest challenge should be design, not fighting around needlessly with compiler errors or language semantics.