Optional Static Typing

[Alex Martelli]

Donn Cave <donn at u.washington.edu> wrote:
   ...
> > > Most of the kinds of error that static typing is supposed
> > > to catch simply don't persist for more than a minute when
> > > you do test driven development.
> > 
> > ...which is exactly the point of the famous post by Robert ("Uncle Bob")
> > Martin on another artima blog,
> > http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=4639 .
> 
> Wait a minute, isn't he same fellow whose precious
> dependency inversion principle shows us the way to
> support fully modular programming?  What would he

Yep, just the same guy (also responsible for Dynamic Visitor, et al).

> say about unit testing to catch up with changes in
> dependent modules, do you think?  Do we have a
> combinatorial explosion potential here?

I can't do justice to all he has to say about these issues, and many
others related to Agile development methods -- you should really get his
book (he's written several, but, in my opinion, it's his masterpiece --
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0135974445/002-8057003-10
74462?v=glance>), or, failing that, at least read his essays at
<http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/listArticles?key=author&author=Ro
bert%20C.%20Martin> (I would skip all of the silly 'craftsman'
fictionalization he's writing for 'Software Development', but I guess
_some_ people must be into that...).


Alex