Programming without fear

This article started life as a response to Chia’s post about the blog article “Strongly Typed Languages Considered Dangerous”.

The bulk of the article is just another example of someone who knows Pascal, C++, Java, and C#, and thinks they know everything there is to know about static typing. But two quotes- one from the article itself, and one from the (must read) comment by Samuel A. Falvo II- jumped out at me, clarifying why it is that static typing is so important to me.

To spoil the ending (Lord Voldemort is Harry’s father), it’s all about programming without fear.

The first quote that jumped out at me was this paragraph, from the main article:

You cannot get away with as much in a dynamically typed language. Or put another way, a dynamically typed language does not enable you to be as sloppy. It’s just a fact. In fact you can typically get away with a lot in a dynamically typed language, you just have to do it well.

This is a classic problem with programming- adding a spoonfull of sewage to a barrel of wine, you get sewage. It’s an all or nothing proposition. Mr. Falvo, who works at a place where they use Python and Java, knows this. At work, to prevent the spoonfull of sewage from being added to their large barrel of wine:

Everything is reviewed, from basic design decisions to minutia like indentation, brace placement, and commenting style. Micro-management is too nice a description for the process. But we’ve found that this is the ONLY way to ensure a universally readable and maintainable code base.

You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you. But you’re still living a life dominated by fear. Every comma, every semicolon, even every space, is a threat. You can’t just haul off and write code- every line needs to be carefully considered. A wise man once said to not sweat the small stuff- and if anything qualifies as small stuff in programming, it has to be indentation. This is not only sweating the small stuff, it’s obsessing over it.

And what’s worse, this paranoia often distracts from what should be the real concerns a programmer should be worrying about. Starting with worrying that you’re solving the right problem. Falvo again:

A customer might ask for a racecar, but you might still deliver a car-boat.

It’s hard enough to remember that you’re here to drain the swamp when you’re up to your ass in alligators. It certainly doesn’t make sense to add more alligators to swamp before you start draining it.

So this is what static typing is to me: it’s freedom from sweating the small stuff. It’s about not needing to worry so much about the alligator wrestling, allowing me to concentrate on draining the swamp.

It’s about programming without fear.