[plt-scheme] Re: macro question

>
> My personal opinion is that types do not significantly improve readability
> of programs. A good similarity between data structure and the structure of
> the procedures acting on these data is far more important, I think (this I
> did experience, but not invent by myself, of course)

I don't know if this falls under "readability", but it's enormously
easier to provide good IDE support for a language with an explicit
type system. When I'm reading unfamiliar Java code, I can use Eclipse
to navigate directly from the use of a variable to its declaration to
the definition of its type, etc. On the other hand, if I'm reading
unfamiliar Python code, each of those steps is difficult and error-
prone. For a small program, that might not make much difference, but
when I'm faced with trying to understand a tiny corner of a 10-million-
line code base, explicit types are awfully useful sign posts.

-mike