Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 14th Jan 2013 23:15 UTC, submitted by MOS6510
"Programming languages are living phenomena: They're born, the lucky ones that don't die in infancy live sometimes long, fruitful lives, and then inevitably enter a period of decline. Unlike real life, the decline can last many, many years as the presence of large legacy codebases means practiced hands must tend the code for decades. The more popular the language once was, the longer this period of decline will be."
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RE[9]: Comment by RareBreed
by kwan_e on Thu 17th Jan 2013 02:50
in reply to "RE[8]: Comment by RareBreed"
Member since:2007-02-18
RE[9]: Comment by RareBreed
by satsujinka on Thu 17th Jan 2013 02:56
in reply to "RE[8]: Comment by RareBreed"
Member since:2010-03-11
Your cat example was simple, so it deserves a simple implementation. If you'd wanted me to model the complete biological workings of a cat; that'd be an example of a complex model that would very much have components that differ in type. And I'd almost certainly want them to be strongly typed; no using a lung as a leg!
All current development models fail horribly at modeling the real world. Weak typing gives you no leverage here. Dynamic typing gives you no leverage. Structured, functional, or object oriented paradigms give you no leverage. The world is a messy graph that you can't simplify into something nice and neat.
Python is a strong language. There isn't any debate about this. It's simply a fact.
RE[10]: Comment by RareBreed
by ndrw on Thu 17th Jan 2013 19:54
in reply to "RE[9]: Comment by RareBreed"
Member since:2009-06-30
The "cat" example was simple object yet most type systems would fail to classify it properly. Real objects have multiple "types" in many hierarchies, often changing over time.
As for python - there was never any debate about it. It has always been a weakly typed language by most definitions (admittedly, not yours). In fact, Guido had to often defend his choice against legions of people who prefer strong typing:
http://www.artima.com/intv/strongweak.html
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 11:29 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.More Features »
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Member since:
2009-06-30
No generalizations are valid. Especially when there are whole groups of people thinking otherwise (here: for very concrete reasons prefer weak typing to strong typing in nearly all cases).
Strong typing works extremely well with abstract single-function objects (a number, a string, a list, a set) and fails *badly* at any attempt of modeling real objects. In a way, you have admitted that yourself - a "cat" from my example would be an "Object" type, distinguished only by its fields, not the type.
Strong typing implies enforcement, otherwise it wouldn't be "strong". Preferably at compile time, and at least at runtime, although many advocates of strong typing would disagree with that. The problem with your example is that Python doesn't even enforce types at runtime - a "type" (class) is just a method of reusing implementation. At runtime the interpreter is only interested whether the field/method you're accessing is defined or not - something that may and does change at any the time.