Cameron Laird Quote on www.unixinsider.com -- Probably old news to y'all, but new to me.

[Neil Hodgson]

Warren Postma:
> I found this quote on www.unixinsider.com's main page when I went there
> today:
>
> "I think we are seeing an end to the emphasis on statically typed
languages
> like C++ and Java. As this decade progresses, I expect to see an ever
> increasing use of dynamically typed languages, such as Python, Ruby, and
> even Smalltalk.
> ...
> They are much easier to refactor and have virtually zero
> compile time."
> --Robert C. Martin, talking to Cameron Laird in the Interviews forum

   C compilation time is also close to zero for much code now. For
'scripting size' problems where you have up to a few hundred lines in a
single file and fairly simple linkage you can press the go button in an
editor and see results starting immediately. For larger programs,
precompiled headers and incremental compilation and linking can reduce
edit-to-go time greatly.

   With Java, using a fast compiler such as IBM's will produce similar
development speed.

   Modern C++ that uses the standard C++ library and so requires a lot of
template expansion may slow down compilation to half a second but that is
still quite competitive with Python.

   This is one benefit of the 'scripting languages' that is rapidly
disappearing as machines get faster and C++ compilers are optimised.

   Neil