[erlang-questions] String versus variable in binary literal

[Steve Davis]

However, should you jump on this idea thinking that "therefore erlang needs stronger typing" then IMHO you have lost sight of the underlying issue of the binary transmission of text; and I would propose that Joe's UBF tagging has a far more interesting remediation!

/s

On May 16, 2012, at 8:02 PM, Steve Davis wrote:

> Confusing, sure. But not impenetrable...
> 
> How is "foo" more typed than <<"foo">>?
> 
> Meaning:
> [ 102,111,111 ]
> <<102,111,111>>
> 
> Isn't the problem really the idea of a "string"?
> 
> When and how - without proper definition of the context - are you supposed to know when a sequence of integers (in either list or binary format) is actually text, and indeed what particular flavor of text?
> 
> The confusion is magnified by the fact that the implicit context assumption of a participant decoder implementation hides the underlying assumption of the encoder.
> 
> /s