[E-Lang] Thanksgiving present for E programmers

[Marc Stiegler]

Fascinating point, that E has found a new intermediate 
ground in the type checking wars. I shall do something
with this insight for the next version (which I will start 
on after people have had time to review the whole 
thing, so don't expect to see this, or any other 
change, over the Thanksgiving holidays :-)

Thank you.

--marcs

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Tyler Close <tclose@oilspace.com>
To: Marc Stiegler <marcs@skyhunter.com>
Cc: E Language Discussions <e-lang@eros.cis.upenn.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2000 2:23 AM
Subject: RE: [E-Lang] Thanksgiving present for E programmers


> Marcs wrote:
> > Well. Strap yourselves into those easy chairs, and curl up
> > with a good book.
> > The book I am recommending is the partial, rough draft of
> >
> > E in a Walnut
> 
> I don't have an easy chair, but I couldn't help but read a bit right
> away.
> 
> > Thrill to the power of the prose! Send me all your criticisms!
> 
> In the opening section, "Why E?", you write about static typing:
> 
> "Users of Perl and Python will immediately assert this is an
> advantage; Java and C++ programmers will not be so sure."
> 
> I think this whole paragraph needs to be rewritten. E doesn't take one
> side in this pitched battle. It actually creates a new, much better
> alternative: optional parameter checking. Using the ":type" syntax, an
> E programmer can write static type checks. Even better, the E
> programmer can write much more stringent parameter checks with ease,
> right in the method declaration. It seems easy to argue that this is a
> vast improvement on static type checking. Since writing these checks
> is optional, you also retain all the advantages of non-statically
> typed languages. A plausible scenario is that programmers will write
> the first cut of the code without any checks and then gradually add
> them in once the design has stabilized and they want to check and
> constrain its behaviour.
> 
> Tyler
>