• tatterdemalion@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    61
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s making fun of dynamic languages because rather than letting the compiler prove theorems about statically typed code, they… don’t.

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      31
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Turns out getting working code is a lot cheaper and more useful than formally proven code.

      • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        And a lot more bug prone. I’m just explaining the OP because people didn’t get it. I’m not saying dynamic languages are bad. I’m saying they have different trade-offs.

        • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          The problem with formal proofs for code is that it assumes the spec/requirements are complete and bug-free.

          I find most bugs come from missed or misinterpreted requirements.

          • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            25
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I have a feeling you are misunderstanding what is meant by “theorems for free” here. For example, one theorem that is proven by all safe Rust programs is that they don’t have data races. That should always be a requirement for functional software. This is a more pragmatic type of automatic theorem proving that doesn’t require a direct proof from the code author. The compiler does the proof for you. Otherwise the theorem would not be “free” as stated in OP.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Ah, the long run. I keep trying to explain this concept to management, but without success.

          • mikidep@lemmy.worldOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            9 months ago

            Industry will choose not to verify that your function does not produce NullPointerException wasting hours of the client’s work, because in order to do that they would have to have actual requirements for software developers, and in order to do that they would have to 1 - have the managers be actually technically literate, and 2 - pay the developers properly That’s it. That’s the theorems. The “formal verification” we’re talking about here are those of the likes of “this value is a damn integer”, or as you could interpret it “your code is not stupidly broken”.

            To be clear, I’m not writing this big comment for you, I know you’re trolling or whatever you’re into, I’m writing this to inform other readers. ✌🏻

      • sping@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes, that’s why we use typing, to get better working code more easily. That’s why I use type annotation and enforced checkers in Python. It makes it so much easier and quicker to create good systems of any significance.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I may just be an old country lawyer PHP developer… but don’t most dynamic languages also support static type checking and general analysis at this point?

      • Solemarc@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes but no. Modern PHP lets you put types in function signatures and it will then attempt to convert your inputs to those types at runtime.

        JS/TS and Python don’t do this. They have optional type annotations that’s treated as syntactic sugar. You can use static checkers against this but if you get an error like “expected string got int” you can still run the code. It won’t behave any differently because you have annotations.

      • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes if you use type annotations. Languages like Python and Typescript end up resorting to “Any” types a lot of the time, which breaks any kind of theorem proving you might have otherwise benefited from.

        • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I know Java developers that are addicted to Object. Hit them over the head with an ensmarttening stick and reject their PRs.

          • tzrlk@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            1 year ago

            Java developers aren’t allowed to not know better by this point. If they think skipping types is somehow ideologically purer, keep hitting with that stick until you hit deckplate.

    • tzrlk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Though even statically-typed languages can need to check types sometimes; parsing runtime data for instance. I can see how you’d do that with pure statics, but it’d just be shifting the work (e.g. if token == QUOTE: proc.call(read_str(bytes, len))). It’d be cool to see a counter example that isn’t unreadable gibberish, however.