I read this on the Ruby ML just recently:
Static typing protects you from errors that you just never make...
- Dan Sugalski
Amen to that. I'm not sure why a language like Ruby draws folks who want to add static typing while a language like Perl generally doesn't. Maybe they fear bodily harm from the Perl folks. I wouldn't mind an optional typing system of some sort, but I can certainly live without it. You can always do tricks with hashes.
Maybe someone should port Params::Validate and then we can set up an auto-reply in the ML whenever the subject comes up. :)
Type declarations
pdcawley on 2002-12-17T21:32:38
There are people on perl6-language who keep making noises about adding static typing to the language, and, indeed it looks like Perl 6 will be getting type declarations. However, to my way of thinking those optional declarations are there for the same reason Common Lisp allows to to declare a typed variable; because you want to get a performance gain (if a variable *knows* it's going to be a foo then you can make useful optimizations based on that.)
YAPMD
broquaint on 2002-12-18T11:36:28
Yet Another Perl Monks Discussion :)
