Small poll

[Bjorn Gustavsson]

We in the Erlang/OTP group at Ericsson have also discussed
this question recently.

For the R10B release, we will probably change the compiler
according to #2 or #3. It is not hard that hard to do. What
we will do is to keep line number information a bit longer
so that the optimization passes that can easily detect this
kind of type error also has access to the original line number
when writing the message.

In the Erlang/OTP group, there are different opinions whether
#2 or #3 is the best way to go.

Personally, I think that #2 is the way to go, but most others
in the Erlang/OTP group seem to favor #3.

/Björn Gustavsson, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB

Kostis Sagonas <kostis@REDACTED> writes:

> I was wondering whether the Erlang user community would care
> to comment on the following:
> 
> In a function like:
> 
> 	test(A) ->
> 	    a + 42.
> 
> which is either crap (arguably) or a typo (A vs a), how many
> Erlang users:
> 
>  1. Are content with the current situation where the compiler
> 	happily compiles this program
>  2. Would like to see a warning, but a .beam file generated
> 	nevetheless
>  3. Would prefer if the compiler in R10 refused to compile it
> 
> Notice I am not talking about any serious attempt to static
> type checking, but for really "basic" checks.
> 
> Kostis.
>