> Suffice it to say, in my entire software career I've kept track of the sum total of bugs I've fixed related to passing the wrong type to a method, or receiving a wrong type from a method, and that number, to date, is (whirring, calculating sounds): 0
This is the classic response. It's also ridiculous. It's not just a matter of "passing the wrong type", it's a matter of using the type system to express higher-level constraints that make it impossible to introduce bugs in a complex system -- bugs more fancy than "I passed a string when I should have passed an int".
Of course, passing a string when you should have passed an int happens with regularity, too, and claims otherwise are a lie, especially if you don't spend a ridiculous amount of time pretending to be a compiler by writing extensive unit tests that would be totally unnecessary if you had one.
> And I never claimed that LINQ or C# lambdas were derived from Ruby, just that they were Ruby-ish. Clearly someone in Redmond is watching Ruby and Rails.
What? I ... no. I point out a 1965 paper on lambdas and you claim MS R&D is watching Ruby? You're comparing LINQ -- which implements a coherent model of relational algebra and set theory -- to Rails?
Ruby didn't pioneer these things, didn't add anything novel to them, implemented inconsistent models of them, and can't take any credit for them.
Fancy? Fancy?? (thumbs through Knuth and SICP looking for "fancy" bugs...looks for "fancy" anti-pattern...)
Nope, not there. Consistent with my own experience, rather than anecdotal FUD (Fanciness Uncertainty and Doubt), after years and years and thousands and thousands of lines of code in type-safe and dynamic environments, I've yet to encounter a significant issue that would have been caught by a type-safe system.
"...especially if you don't spend a ridiculous amount of time pretending to be a compiler by writing extensive unit tests that would be totally unnecessary if you had one."
Complete. Nonsense. I write the same unit tests in RSpec and TestUnit that I write in NUnit and JUnit, and far, far, FAR, fewer lines of code for the same coverage in Ruby. I do NOT write extra unit tests because -- holy crap! I don't have type-safety!
No, type coverage is a side-effect of a well-written unit test. No extra effort whatsoever is needed.
"I point out a 1965 paper on lambdas and you claim MS R&D is watching Ruby?"
This is starting to sound like a debate between a CS student who just got out of a Set Theory final and just figured out who CAR Hoare is, and someone who is just trying to ship features and make sure his company makes money. Yes, I have a decent handle on lambda calculus (thanks for the Wikipedia link) and I know the differences between Ruby's collections DSL and LINQ, having used both pretty extensively.
It doesn't matter. The notion that MS is not paying attention to the most influential application framework of the last 10 years is a ridiculous idea. The fact that Ruby didn't pioneer lambda calculus is...just as obvious as the fact that C# didn't pioneer VMs, GC, generics, etc., and can't take credit for those either, and just as much of a non-sequitur.
This is the classic response. It's also ridiculous. It's not just a matter of "passing the wrong type", it's a matter of using the type system to express higher-level constraints that make it impossible to introduce bugs in a complex system -- bugs more fancy than "I passed a string when I should have passed an int".
Of course, passing a string when you should have passed an int happens with regularity, too, and claims otherwise are a lie, especially if you don't spend a ridiculous amount of time pretending to be a compiler by writing extensive unit tests that would be totally unnecessary if you had one.
> And I never claimed that LINQ or C# lambdas were derived from Ruby, just that they were Ruby-ish. Clearly someone in Redmond is watching Ruby and Rails.
What? I ... no. I point out a 1965 paper on lambdas and you claim MS R&D is watching Ruby? You're comparing LINQ -- which implements a coherent model of relational algebra and set theory -- to Rails?
Ruby didn't pioneer these things, didn't add anything novel to them, implemented inconsistent models of them, and can't take any credit for them.