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0 pointsxyzzy_plugh4y ago0 comments

This is because JSON and GraphQL are hot garbage. You may as well have written:

> How do I disable static typing for this statically typed language?

I have sympathy for your struggles -- I've been there. But fundamentally this always ends up being a problem of putting a square peg into a round hole.

I don't expect most folks to agree with this take, but I have the utmost faith it'll age well.

If you don't believe me now, set a reminder for ten years and see how we feel about JSON and GraphQL.

0 comments

Ericson23144y ago

You're missing the point: even if JSON and GraphQL were better, untrusted data is always "untyped". Something has to parse the raw representation until proper data types the type system can understand.

Ideally this is all transparent, and programmers can stop wasting their lives reimplementing this stuff again and again and again, but even if programmers don't waste their time reimplementing it, computers will spend a decent amount of time running it, at least where there is more than one process / machine / whatever in question and therefore untrusted boundaries.

xyzzy_plughOP4y ago

I don't follow. Writing a parser doesn't require generics. I've written hundreds of parsers. You can even use a generator like protoc to provide you read/write code that returns/uses concrete, static types.

What on earth does dealing with untrusted inputs have to do with anything?

Ericson23144y ago

I wasn't primary talking about generics, I would responding to

> You may as well have written:

> > How do I disable static typing for this statically typed language?

and so just talking about parsing and static type checking.

As it turns out, generics do help immensely if one wants to use so-called "parser combinators".

johnmaguire4y ago

GraphQL is typed.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsxyzzy_plugh4y ago0 comments

This is because JSON and GraphQL are hot garbage. You may as well have written:

> How do I disable static typing for this statically typed language?

I have sympathy for your struggles -- I've been there. But fundamentally this always ends up being a problem of putting a square peg into a round hole.

I don't expect most folks to agree with this take, but I have the utmost faith it'll age well.

If you don't believe me now, set a reminder for ten years and see how we feel about JSON and GraphQL.

0 comments

Ericson23144y ago

xyzzy_plughOP4y ago

What on earth does dealing with untrusted inputs have to do with anything?

Ericson23144y ago

I wasn't primary talking about generics, I would responding to

> You may as well have written:

> > How do I disable static typing for this statically typed language?

and so just talking about parsing and static type checking.

As it turns out, generics do help immensely if one wants to use so-called "parser combinators".

johnmaguire4y ago

GraphQL is typed.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse