Interview at Lang.NEXT

[deadalnix via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Wednesday, 4 June 2014 at 22:02:37 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> Yeah, I'm generally against it... but I have a weird view of 
> typing.
>
> The way I see it, you should go either strong and static or 
> dynamic and weak - I hate the middle ground.
>
> So, in my view:
>
> Best (like D):
> string a = "10"; int b = 20;
> a + b; // compile time error: cannot do string + int
>
> Sometimes ok (my jsvar/script language also PHP and some 
> others):
> var a = "10"; var b = 20;
> a + b; // 30
>
> Blargh (javascript):
> var a = "10"; var b = 20;
> a + b; // "1020"
>
> Hatred:
> var a = "10"; var b = 20;
> a + b; // throws an exception at run time
>

Yup, you choose the right tradeoff. I wish std.json has something
in the same style as our jsvar.

> The D one is best because it draws your attention to something 
> that is imperfect immediately and reliably via a compilation 
> error. Then you can solve it with to!int or
> whatever easily.
>
> The weak+dynamic is passable to me because it actually mostly 
> works. The operator you choose coerces the arguments and gives 
> something basically usable. I'd be ok if it
> threw an exception in the case of a string that cannot be 
> sanely converted to int, but if it can be made to work, just do 
> it.
>

We all have to handle JSON or XML or some other thing like that
at some point. When it come to these, having variant typing is
huge for ease of use.