Proposed change to libraries

Kostis Sagonas kostis@REDACTED
Mon Feb 14 18:38:35 CET 2005


Dominic Williams wrote:
 > Erlang is not a type-safe language, so it seems to me that the
 > libraries are consistent with the documentation if they work as
 > advertized, for advertized types. There is no implicit suggestion
 > that they should refuse to work on other types.

Oh, but more often than not they do!  Try:

	lists:map(gazonk, [1]).

and you will get an exception.

 > I see guards as a pattern matching tool (i.e. to provide a separate
 > clause for separate types), not as a type checking tool. I practice
 > test-driven development, so I am not interested in the compiler
 > doing any type checking. What matters to me, as a programmer, is that 
 > Erlang allows me to write simple, economical code where I don't need
 > to explicitly declare types or guarantee type safety.

Let me assure you that whatever we do would not force you to change
your favourite working habbits.  Nobody will _require_ you to declare
types.  But you will not be able to write calls such as:

	lists:map(gazonk, []).

and expect them not to throw an exception at *runtime*.

 > What the motivation is for having stricter type checking in Erlang?

So that people who choose to do this, can.

Best,
Kostis




More information about the erlang-questions mailing list