OK, so this isn't necessarily anything new, but I had to go with the running joke of the two blog posts this post is more or less a follow up to. If you haven't already read them, go read Yegge's Dynamic Languages Strikes Back, and Beust's Return Of The Statically Typed Languages.
So let's see. Distilled, Steve thinks that static languages have reached the ceiling for what's possible to do, and that dynamic languages offer more flexibility and power without actually sacrificing performance and maintainability. He backs this up with several research papers that point to very interesting runtime performance improvement techniques that really can help dynamic languages perform exceptionally well.
On the other hand Cedric believes that Scala is bad because of implicits and pattern matching, that it's common sense to not allow people to use the languages they like, that tools for dynamic languages will never be as good as the ones for static ones, that Java generics isn't really a problem, that dynamic language performance will improve but that this doesn't matter, that static languages really hasn't failed at all and that Java is still the best language of choice, and will continue to be for a long time.
Now, these two bloggers obviously have different opinions, and it's really hard to actually see which parts are facts and which are opinions. So let me try to sort out some facts first:
Dynamic language have been around for a long time. As long as statically typed languages in fact. Lisp was the first one.
There have been extremely efficient dynamic language implementations. Some of the Common Lisp implementations are on par with C performance, and Strongtalk also achieved incredible numbers. As several commenters have noted, Strongtalks performance did not come from the optional type tags.
All dynamic languages in large use today are not even on the same map with regards to performance. There are several approaches to fixing these, but we can't know how well they will work out in practice.
Java's type system is not very strong, and not very static, as these definitions go. From a type theoretic stand point Java does not offer neither static type safety nor any complete guarantees.
There is a good reason for these holes in Java. In particular, Java was created to give lots of hints to the compiler so the compiler can catch errors where the programmer is insoncistent. This is one of the reasons that you very often find yourself writing the same type name twice, including the type name arguments (generics). If the programmer makes a mistake at one side, the compiler will be able to catch this error very easily. It is a redundancy in the syntax that makes Java programs very verbose, but helps against certain kinds of mistakes.
Really strong type systems like those Haskell and OCaML use provide extremely strong compile time guarantees. This means that if the compiler accepts your program, you will never see any runtime errors from the type system. This allows these compilers to generate very efficient code, because they know more about the state of the application at most points in time, compared to the compiler for Java, which knows some things, but not nearly as much as Haskell or OCaML.
The downside of really strong type systems is that they disallow some extremely common expressions - these are things you intuitively can imagine, but it can't be expressed within the constraints of such a type system. One solution to these problems is to add higher kinds, but these have a tendency to create more complexity and also suffer from some of the same problems.
So, we have three categories of languages here. The strongly statically checked ones, like Haskell. The weakly statically checked ones, like Java. And the dynamically checked ones, like Ruby. The way I look at these, they are good at very different things. They don't even compete in the same leagues. And comparing them is not really a valid point of reasoning. The one thing that I am totally sure if is that we need better tools. And the most important tool in my book is the language. It's interesting, many Java programmers talk so much about tools, but they never seem to think about their language as a tool. For me, the language is what shapes my thinking, and thus it's definitely much more important than which editor I'm using.
I think Cedric have a point in that dynamic language tool support will never be as good as those for statically typed languages - at least not when you're defining "good" to be the things that current Java tools are good at. Steve thinks that the tools will be just as good, but different. I'm not sure. To a degree I know that no tool can ever be completely safe and complete, as long as the language include things like external configuration, reflection and so on. There is no way to include all dynamic aspects of Java, but using the common mainstream parts of the language will give you most of these. As always this is a tradeoff. You might get better IDE support for Java right now, but you will be able to express things in Ruby that you just can't express in Java because the abstractions will become too large.
This is the point where I'm going to do a copout. These discussions are good, to the degree that we are working on improving our languages (our tools). But there is a fuzzy line in these discussions, where you end up comparing apples and oranges. These languages are all useful, for different things. A good programmer uses his common sense to provide the best value possible. That includes choosing the best language for the job. If Ruby allows you to provide functionality 5 times faster than the equivalent functionality with Java, you need to think about whether this is acceptable or not. On the one hand, Java has IDEs that make maintainability easier, but with the Ruby codebase you will end up maintaining a fifth of the size of the Java code base. Is that trade off acceptable? In some cases yes, in some cases no.
In many cases the best solution is a hybrid one. There is a reason that Google allows more than one language (C++, Java, Python and JavaScript). This is because the languages are good at different things. They have different characteristics, and you can get a synergistic effect by combining them. A polyglot system can be greater than the sum of it's parts.
I guess that's the message of this post. Compare languages, understand your most important tools. Have several different tools for different tasks, and understand the failings of your current tools. Reason about these failings in comparison to the tasks they should do well, instead of just comparing languages to languages.
Be good polyglot programmers. The world will not have a new big language again, and you need to rewire your head to work in this environment.
Visar inlägg med etikett static typing. Visa alla inlägg
Visar inlägg med etikett static typing. Visa alla inlägg
onsdag, maj 14, 2008
lördag, april 12, 2008
Pragmatic Static Typing
I have been involved in several discussions about programming languages lately and people have assumed that since I spend lots of time in the Ruby world and with dynamic languages in general I don't like static typing. Many people in the dynamic language communities definitely expresses opinions that sound like they dislike static typing quite a lot.
I'm trying to not sound defensive here, but I feel the need to clarify my position on the whole discussion. Partly because I think that people are being extremely dogmatic and short-sighted by having an attitude like that.
Most of my time I spend coding in Java and in Ruby. My personal preference are to languages such as Common Lisp and Io, but there is no real chance to use them in my day-to-day work. Ruby neatly fits the purpose of a dynamic language that is close to Lisp for my taste. And I'm involved in JRuby because I believe that there is great worth in the Java platform, but also that many Java programmers would benefit from staying less in the Java language.
I have done my time with Haskell, ML, Scala and several other quite statically typed languages. In general, the fact that I don't speak that much about those languages is that I have less exposure to them in my day-to-day life.
But this is the thing. I don't dislike static typing. Absolutely not. It's extremely useful. In many circumstances it gives me things that really can't have in a dynamic language.
Interesting thought: Smalltalk is generally called a dynamic language with very late binding. There are no static type tags and no type inference happening. The only type checking that happens will happen at runtime. In this regard, Smalltalk is exactly like Ruby. The main difference is that when you're working with Smalltalk, it is _always_ runtime. Because of the image based system, the type checking actually happens when you do the programming. There is no real difference between coding time and runtime. Interestingly, this means that Smalltalk tools and environments have most of the same features as a static programming language, while still being dynamic. So a runtime based image system in a dynamic, late bound programming language will actually give you many of the benefits of static typing at compile time.
So the main take away is that I really believe that static typing is extremely important. It's very, very useful, but not in all circumstances. The fact that we reach for a statically typed programming language by default is something we really need to work with though, because it's not always the right choice. I'm going to say this in even stronger words. In most cases a statically typed language is a premature optimization that gets extremely much in the way of productivity. That doesn't mean you shouldn't choose a statically typed language when it's the best solution for the problem. But this should be a conscious choice and not by fiat, just because Java is one of the dominant languages right now. And if you need a statically typed language, make sure that you choose one that doesn't revel in unnecessary type tags. (Java, C#, C++, I'm looking at you.) My current choice for a static language is Scala - it strikes a good balance in most cases.
A statically typed language with type inference will give you some of the same benefits as a good dynamic language, but definitely not all of them. In particular, you get different benefits and a larger degree of flexibility from a dynamic language that can't be achieved in a static language. Neal Ford and others have been talking about the distinction between dynamic and static typing as being incorrect. The real question is between essence and ceremony. Java is a ceremonious language because it needs you to do several dances to the rain gods to declare even the simplest form of method. In an essential language you will say what you need to say, but nothing else. This is one of the reasons dynamic languages and type inferenced static languages sometimes look quite alike - it's the absence of ceremony that people react to. That doesn't mean any essential language can be replaced by another. And with regads to ceremony - don't use a ceremonious language at all. Please. There is no reason and there are many alternatives that are better.
My three level architecture of layers should probably be updated to say that the stable layer should be an essential, statically typed language. The soft/dynamic layer should almost always be a strongly typed dynamic essential language, and the DSL layers stays the same.
Basically, I believe that you should be extremely pragmatic with regards to both static and dynamic typing. They are tools that solve different problems. But out industry today have a tendency to be very dogmatic about these issues, and that's the real danger I think. I'm happy to see language-oriented programming and polyglot programming get more traction, because they improve a programmers pragmatic sensibilities.
I'm trying to not sound defensive here, but I feel the need to clarify my position on the whole discussion. Partly because I think that people are being extremely dogmatic and short-sighted by having an attitude like that.
Most of my time I spend coding in Java and in Ruby. My personal preference are to languages such as Common Lisp and Io, but there is no real chance to use them in my day-to-day work. Ruby neatly fits the purpose of a dynamic language that is close to Lisp for my taste. And I'm involved in JRuby because I believe that there is great worth in the Java platform, but also that many Java programmers would benefit from staying less in the Java language.
I have done my time with Haskell, ML, Scala and several other quite statically typed languages. In general, the fact that I don't speak that much about those languages is that I have less exposure to them in my day-to-day life.
But this is the thing. I don't dislike static typing. Absolutely not. It's extremely useful. In many circumstances it gives me things that really can't have in a dynamic language.
Interesting thought: Smalltalk is generally called a dynamic language with very late binding. There are no static type tags and no type inference happening. The only type checking that happens will happen at runtime. In this regard, Smalltalk is exactly like Ruby. The main difference is that when you're working with Smalltalk, it is _always_ runtime. Because of the image based system, the type checking actually happens when you do the programming. There is no real difference between coding time and runtime. Interestingly, this means that Smalltalk tools and environments have most of the same features as a static programming language, while still being dynamic. So a runtime based image system in a dynamic, late bound programming language will actually give you many of the benefits of static typing at compile time.
So the main take away is that I really believe that static typing is extremely important. It's very, very useful, but not in all circumstances. The fact that we reach for a statically typed programming language by default is something we really need to work with though, because it's not always the right choice. I'm going to say this in even stronger words. In most cases a statically typed language is a premature optimization that gets extremely much in the way of productivity. That doesn't mean you shouldn't choose a statically typed language when it's the best solution for the problem. But this should be a conscious choice and not by fiat, just because Java is one of the dominant languages right now. And if you need a statically typed language, make sure that you choose one that doesn't revel in unnecessary type tags. (Java, C#, C++, I'm looking at you.) My current choice for a static language is Scala - it strikes a good balance in most cases.
A statically typed language with type inference will give you some of the same benefits as a good dynamic language, but definitely not all of them. In particular, you get different benefits and a larger degree of flexibility from a dynamic language that can't be achieved in a static language. Neal Ford and others have been talking about the distinction between dynamic and static typing as being incorrect. The real question is between essence and ceremony. Java is a ceremonious language because it needs you to do several dances to the rain gods to declare even the simplest form of method. In an essential language you will say what you need to say, but nothing else. This is one of the reasons dynamic languages and type inferenced static languages sometimes look quite alike - it's the absence of ceremony that people react to. That doesn't mean any essential language can be replaced by another. And with regads to ceremony - don't use a ceremonious language at all. Please. There is no reason and there are many alternatives that are better.
My three level architecture of layers should probably be updated to say that the stable layer should be an essential, statically typed language. The soft/dynamic layer should almost always be a strongly typed dynamic essential language, and the DSL layers stays the same.
Basically, I believe that you should be extremely pragmatic with regards to both static and dynamic typing. They are tools that solve different problems. But out industry today have a tendency to be very dogmatic about these issues, and that's the real danger I think. I'm happy to see language-oriented programming and polyglot programming get more traction, because they improve a programmers pragmatic sensibilities.
onsdag, januari 16, 2008
Viability of Java and the stable layer
This post is basically a follow up to Language explorations. That post had several statements about what I believe, and some of them have been a bit misunderstood, so I'll try to substantiate them a bit more here. Specifically, I want to talk about the viability of the Java language and whether "the stable layer" should be a static or dynamic language.
Lets begin with the stable layer. First, notice that I didn't have any specific definitions for the different layers when I wrote the post. In fact, I think that they are inherently a bit fuzzy. That's OK. DSL's are also quite fuzzy. The attributes I put at the stable layer is first of all that it shouldn't need to change much. In a smaller application, you can actually look at supporting structures as the stable layer, things like application servers or web servers. But for larger applications I find that you usually need your own stable kernel.
The reasons I choose static typing for stable layer is for several reasons. Performance is absolutely one of these, since everything will run on this base it's an advantage if that part is as performant as possible. Secondly, I am no dynamic language, TDD purist that says that static typing is totally unnecessary. Static type checking can be very helpful, but it stops you from having a malleable language. So the kernel should be stable, this means that as much checking as possible is necessary. None of these requirements explicitly preclude a dynamic language, but the specific features of dynamic languages doesn't really come to their rights at this level, and also leading to performance and static type checking suffering.
The more contentious part about my post seems to have been my off hand comment that I don't believe Java is really good for anything. I didn't give much reason in that post, and people have reacted in different ways, from saying that "Java is really good" to "Why are you involved in JRuby if you think Java is so bad?". So lets start with why Java is a bad language. (I am only talking about the language here, not the platform). Also, that Java is a bad doesn't say anything about the worse alternatives, so no comments along the lines of "if you think Java is so bad, why don't you use X instead".
In short:
So, lets look at the question about why I'm working on JRuby. Well, first, I believe the JVM is a very good place to be at. It's the best platform out there, in my opinion. The libraries are great, the runtime is awesome, and it's available basically everywhere. The bytecodes of the JVM spec is good enough for most purposes. There is some tweaking that can be done (which we are looking at in JSR292), but mostly it's a very nice place. And working on JRuby is really one of the ways I've seen how bad Java as a language is. We are employing several different tricks to get away from the worst parts of it, though. Code generation is used in several places. We are generating byte codes at runtime. We are using annotations to centralize handling of JRuby methods. And we are moving parts of the implementation to Ruby. I believe that JRuby is important because it can run in the same environment as Java, but without the problems of Java.
What are the solutions to the problem with Java? There are basically two different ways. Either define a subset of Java, not necessarily totally compatible, that takes the best parts of Java syntax, does away with the problems and so on. That should be possible, but I don't know anyone who has done it. Or, you can go with an existing static language on the JVM. Here you have two choices - either one of the ports of existing extremely static languages (like ML or Haskell), or you can go with something like Scala. I haven't decided on the best solution here yet. The only thing I'm sure of is that Java in itself is a problem. I'm investigating Scala, but maybe Scala isn't the right answer either. We'll see.
Lets begin with the stable layer. First, notice that I didn't have any specific definitions for the different layers when I wrote the post. In fact, I think that they are inherently a bit fuzzy. That's OK. DSL's are also quite fuzzy. The attributes I put at the stable layer is first of all that it shouldn't need to change much. In a smaller application, you can actually look at supporting structures as the stable layer, things like application servers or web servers. But for larger applications I find that you usually need your own stable kernel.
The reasons I choose static typing for stable layer is for several reasons. Performance is absolutely one of these, since everything will run on this base it's an advantage if that part is as performant as possible. Secondly, I am no dynamic language, TDD purist that says that static typing is totally unnecessary. Static type checking can be very helpful, but it stops you from having a malleable language. So the kernel should be stable, this means that as much checking as possible is necessary. None of these requirements explicitly preclude a dynamic language, but the specific features of dynamic languages doesn't really come to their rights at this level, and also leading to performance and static type checking suffering.
The more contentious part about my post seems to have been my off hand comment that I don't believe Java is really good for anything. I didn't give much reason in that post, and people have reacted in different ways, from saying that "Java is really good" to "Why are you involved in JRuby if you think Java is so bad?". So lets start with why Java is a bad language. (I am only talking about the language here, not the platform). Also, that Java is a bad doesn't say anything about the worse alternatives, so no comments along the lines of "if you think Java is so bad, why don't you use X instead".
In short:
- Java is extremely verbose. This is really a few different problems in one:
- No type inference
- Verbose generic type signatures
- Anonymous class implementations
- There is no way to create new kinds of abstractions:
- No closures
- Anonymous classes are a really clunky way to handle "block" functionality
- Broken generics implementation
- Language is becoming bloated
So, lets look at the question about why I'm working on JRuby. Well, first, I believe the JVM is a very good place to be at. It's the best platform out there, in my opinion. The libraries are great, the runtime is awesome, and it's available basically everywhere. The bytecodes of the JVM spec is good enough for most purposes. There is some tweaking that can be done (which we are looking at in JSR292), but mostly it's a very nice place. And working on JRuby is really one of the ways I've seen how bad Java as a language is. We are employing several different tricks to get away from the worst parts of it, though. Code generation is used in several places. We are generating byte codes at runtime. We are using annotations to centralize handling of JRuby methods. And we are moving parts of the implementation to Ruby. I believe that JRuby is important because it can run in the same environment as Java, but without the problems of Java.
What are the solutions to the problem with Java? There are basically two different ways. Either define a subset of Java, not necessarily totally compatible, that takes the best parts of Java syntax, does away with the problems and so on. That should be possible, but I don't know anyone who has done it. Or, you can go with an existing static language on the JVM. Here you have two choices - either one of the ports of existing extremely static languages (like ML or Haskell), or you can go with something like Scala. I haven't decided on the best solution here yet. The only thing I'm sure of is that Java in itself is a problem. I'm investigating Scala, but maybe Scala isn't the right answer either. We'll see.
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