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From: snedunur@us.oracle.com (Srinvas Nedunuri)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.beta,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.python,comp.lang.sather,comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Rapid Prototyping + statically-typed OOPLs?
Date: 16 Jul 1995 07:52:55 GMT
Organization: Server Technologies, Oracle Corporation
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In article <3u1aik$1f5@galaxy.ucr.edu>,
Tom Payne <thp@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_DOMAIN_FILE> wrote:
>Dr. Rich Artym (rartym@galacta.demon.co.uk) wrote:
><snip>
>: constraints.  Since the requirements and design are not known fully until
>: the R.P. development is ended, it would appear that the benefits offered
>: by languages like C++ are not easily achievable in an R.P. environment,
>: or conversely, that use of such languages could hamper the R.P. effort
>: and so reduce the benefits of this form of development.
><xnip>
>
>
>I can't see why!  
>
>The benefits of static type checking have to do with early detection
>of errors (compile time vs. run time) and the fact that compile-time
>errors are much more easily fixed.  Rapid debugging would seem to be
>beneficial to rapid prototyping.
>
>Obviously, the benefits of interpreters in terms of nearly instant
>recompilation and run-time code modification might outweigh the
>benefits of static type checking.  I don't see these as mutually
>exclusive, however.
>
Absolutely. Functional languages like Miranda, ML, etc. offer the benefit of
polymorphic type inference (not just type checking!) *and* rapid prototyping
As you define additional functions, they are typechecked and added to the 
collection of existing definitions. Thus I would say that rapid prototyping
has more to do with incremental compilation than it has to do with the absence
of a type checker. I like Prolog for the same reasons, but the existing
language has no notion of types.

--srin;