[plt-scheme] type of language

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 5:02 AM, Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu>wrote:

>
> RealWorldHaskell is probably good at explaining how to use the language to
> count sheep.
> Your quotes suggest that these people haven't studied PL.
>

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 5:17 AM, Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk at cs.brown.edu>wrote:

>
> So these authors wandered into territory they didn't need to (this is,
> after all, Real World Haskell, not Definitional Haskell), tried to
> sound academic, and made asses of themselves.


> If your goal was to discredit the book on this topic, you provided a
> fine excerpt


Thanks Matthias and Shriram.

While I wasn't intending to discredit the book on this topic (I just happen
to cross those passages while this thread is going on), I did suspect the
excerpts won't hold up here ;)

However, the excerpts (and what Marek said earlier) match well with what
developers in industry thought of type systems.

Many developeres in the industry (myself included) only have limited
understsanding about types (and mostly from such books), and such
definitions generally has enough content so most can perform daily tasks
without having to dwell further.  And they probably will never dig up all
the research materials and texts to learn more, except to google the
infallible Wikipedia or ask their cubicle neighbors, then the
myth perpectuates.

IMO it would be nice to have some "correct" and hopefully intuitive sound
bytes on types that can be given to such developers to help re-steer the
trend.  They might never formally study PL, but at least they can have
better understandings.  Something like a Type System 101 perhaps.  And maybe
that will strike their fancy to learn more.

Just my 2 cents.  Cheers,
yc
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