“ITS LIKE BLAMING THE VEHICLE FOR YOU ARE NOT READY TO WALK TO REACH THERE”

;^/

As a more extreme example, consider the Python fragment

cats = []

The C# equivalent might require the creation of a whole extra class:

class CatalogueCollection : CollectionBase {
   .... dozens of lines of code omitted ...
}
...
CatalogueCollection cats = new CatalogueCollection();

This represents a several-hundered-to-one code-expansion ratio. (Admittedly I now generate these subclasses of CollectionBase et al. using Cog, which reduces the amount of actual typing required.)

Lack of static declarations does not mean that autocompletion is impossible to implement–there are plenty of counterexamples. But with less-verbose languages you need it a lot less.

I have a hard time arguing against the value of Control+Space (I’ve tried before and was called on it, by Mr. de hOra no less). Control+Space is a rock solid feature that a great number of developers depend on.

Ryan, I’m sure you’ve read Paul Graham’s Programming Bottom-Up. I needn’t mention this approach is also at the basis of Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Ctrl+Space IS probably something many programmers depend on, but it has a lot of negative effects: it encourages illiteracy, discourages code reuse, makes the programmer dependent on a IDE and generally gives people bad habits.

Look at .NET for instance. Microsoft has always had a pattern with developing API’s: extensive coverage and flat API, preventing people from creating their own toolset and making it impossible to memorize the API. I’ve no experience with Java, but I guess it looks similar. From a business standpoint it makes perfect sense if you’re Sun or Microsoft, but you know, some programmers regard themselves as artists…

Yes you might get the code written just as fast. And in truth you can really bomb through Java code in a tool like IDEA. But after you ship, you will have more code to deal with, you will have more tools in the chain, you will have more technology to deal with.

Are you talking about standalone client apps? Tim mentions that the two pieces of writing that made him look at Ruby/Rails were both dealing with web applications. Since they’re web apps, you’re not releasing code into the wild.

Closures are so insanely useful, I don’t understand how anyone would want to do without them once they’ve tasted the power. Closures are the real line I draw between languages I enjoy using and those I don’t — the static vs dynamic typing thing really takes a backseat.

Which brings me to:

Ryan: WRT compiler errors, I am in fact very curious about getting my feet wet with the modern purely functional languages, such as Haskell, which are in fact strongly typed. You just aren’t reminded of it every step of the way. And the compiler can find real logic bugs (read the talk notes to understand).

That’s in sharp contrast with the typing in ALGOL derivatives, which seems to constantly annoy withtout ever really repaying all the labour.

(Note to self: I’ve been dropping the “I’m curious” line without doing anything about it for way too long now.)

I suppose both my lovesong for closures as well as my type inference tendencies put me firmly on one particular side of the IDE divide… see also the L-t-U discussion about it.

In retrospect, I have to wonder how this discussion went for so long before I remembered that link. It seems to summarise most of what the language debate comes down to.