[M3devel] JIT [WAS: Google Benchmark - anyone interested in an Modula 3 version?]

[Hendrik Boom]

On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 10:20:34AM -0500, felipe valdez wrote:
> why let the computer do the inferencing work, if we can do the typing work!
> 
> don't let the computer work for you!

(1) computers aren't that fast yet.  They can still use some help.

(2) computers might infer the wrong types -- types that fit what we 
coded, but not what we meant.

That said, there are rather simple type inference methods that require 
a lot less explicit typing than today's conventional strongly typed 
languages impose on us.

Ideally, the computer should do about the same amount of type 
inferencing that a human reader would easily do when reading 
the program.  Note that I said "reader", not "writer".

-- hendrik

> 
> 
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Hendrik Boom <hendrik at topoi.pooq.com> wrote:
> 
> > If understand correctly, these results are about figuring out what types
> > the programmer meant if he failed to specify any.  My view is that the
> > programmer probably knew full well what he meant, and he might as well
> > say so, in the interest of clarity if nothing else.  I find programs
> > with secret types to be incomprehensible, even while I'm writing them.
> >
> > And getting error messages if what I wrote doesn't match what I
> > intended, and getting better run-time, well, those are wonderful
> > consequences.
> >
> > -- hendrik