Re: how to prevent bugs without static type checking?

[Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@...>]

> According to my experience, once you get your data structures right, you
> start piling up abstractions and define clear interfaces that hide the
> data representation

Experiences vary :) You need *a lot* of discipline to define and
keep clear interfaces that do not leak. (Moreover, because typical
dynamically typed languages are interpreted, people sometimes avoid
piling up abstractions for the sake of speed. Each intermediate function
counts, so there is a big incentive not to abstract... And there is
no type system to help keeping proper abstraction boundaries.)


> (I mean, an opaque datatype in ML terminology).

Could you say instead "in Python/Lua/Perl terminology"?  ;)

-- Roberto