Re: [q-lang-users] H/M-based typing for Q

[Andrew B. <an...@vo...>]

Speaking as a (only mostly) reformed ADA programmer, who cannot even =
send in a bug report without mangling the script; I would love something =
like perl's "use strict;" and "use warnings;" options.

One thing I've always wanted from a dynamic type system is the ability =
for it to run across my program and re-emit it with all the type =
annotations it can figure out.  This could be valuable right now to look =
for typing errors, but it seems like in the case that there is a native =
compiler which is going to use this information it would tell me where I =
need to put type hints in order to help it optimize its output.

I spent a few years looking at Smalltalk or Self type languages, and =
thought that Self especially could benefit from having a bit more static =
type information, but that putting it everywhere, and in every script, =
was too much burden on the programmer.  Just putting it where it is not =
machine discoverable, and only in the performance sensitive areas of the =
code seems like a better compromise.

On a sort-of-but-not-quite-related theme, I've always wanted a compiler =
which would re-emit the source code (with all comments retained) in some =
normal form, with all the redundant parenthesis removed, and optionally =
reformatted into the canonical format for that language.  I think of it =
as the "show me what you thought I said" mode.  For C there are programs =
like "indent" which do the reformatting, but to me this is better done =
by the compiler, which has the advantage of having semantic information =
to work from instead of just syntax.

-andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: q-l...@li...
[mailto:q-l...@li...]On Behalf Of Albert
Graef
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:32 PM
To: Discuss the Q language.
Subject: Re: [q-lang-users] H/M-based typing for Q


Yes sure, that's why Nathan's system is much more flexible than basic
H/M. See http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~nwhitehe/qt.html

Don't worry, nobody wants to put on the concrete shoes of H/M over here.
;-) Q's dynamic typing is one of its distinguishing features and I
certainly want it to stay that way. If someone wants something like
Haskell he knows where to find it.

However, it could be useful to have a tool which tries to infer as much
typing information from a Q program as possible. That information could
be used in a native code compiler, or to give warnings about possible
typing errors in a script. Or we could have a separate program (kind of
"lint" for Q) which does that job.

Cheers,
Albert