Jon Skeet: Coding Blog

I was considering starting this project myself, oddly enough with the same name. I didn't however because I don't really consider myself quite skilled enough to pull it off. Glad to see a true expert is getting the ball rolling - if I can find a way to contribute without breaking anything I'd love to.

Regarding dynamic, consider this code (I'm writing pseudo-C# but imagine this is actually a dynamic language):

public dynamic Sum(dynamic[] items) {

   // I assume items has at least one items

   dynamic result = items[0];

   for (dynamic i = 1; i < items.Length; i++)

       result += items[i];

   return result;

}

I wrote this for integers with my dynamic language - I can't define my variables to be of type integer, and I have no reason to do so anyway.

Now, if I want to sum decimal numbers what do I do?

Sum([1.5, 2.3]);

And if I want to 'sum' strings with concatenation?

Sum(["Hello. ", "My name", "is Inigo Montoya."]);

Now I have define my own numberic type:

struct complex {

   dynamic real;

   dynamic imaginary;

   dynamic operator +(left, right);

}

How do I sum them?

That's the main beauty of dynamic languages. There is a static languages that can do that - I can only think of Go right now, but maybe there are others as well.

The power of Go is that it is a static language that has the most important feature of dynamic languages - implicit interfaces. But Go sucks because it doesn't have a decent BCL (it's good at what it's for, I think, but I prefer more generic languages).