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0 pointslolinder4y ago0 comments

This argument is common, but I've never understood how a dynamically typed language is supposed to avoid coupling algorithms to data structures.

When using a data structure, I know what set of fields I expect it to have. In TypeScript, I can ask the compiler to check that my function's callers always provide data that meets my expectations. In JavaScript, I can check for these expectations at runtime or just let my function have undefined behavior.

Either way, if my function's assumptions about the data's shape don't turn out to be correct, it will break, whether or not I use a dynamic language.

It seems that most of the people who make this argument against static typing are actually arguing against violations of the Robustness Principle[0]: "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept".

A statically typed function that is as generous as possible should be no more brittle against outside change than an equally-generous dynamically typed function. The main difference is that the statically typed function is explicit about what inputs it has well-defined behavior for.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

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throwaway3464344y ago

If you are doing things with what is basically strings, as you find a lot of user input from web form inputs is, the advantages in having a lot of different strict types of Strings isnt huge. In these scenarios, using just basic types gets you a long way, because there is often very little business logic - route here, render that template, set these attributes.

Even a lot of JSON or XML parsing, you throw it into a parser and take what you need; if an unrelated field isnt what you expected, just move on with things rather than stop everything because the library author forgot about extension or openness possibilities (ie: an xs:any in a schema).

This attitude comes from the assumption not that types are unhelpful; just the chances we've modelled every outcome into our view of the world and gotten that right is unlikely.

When you get to complex systems with state changes to data and strict, well defined policies, rules engines, etc? Thats where dynamic languages often start adding all of that validation layer, to assert for right now you should act more like a type system and it's important - it probably has financial or security or other risks.

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