"Strong typing vs. strong testing"

[Chris Rebert]

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 2:55 AM, Malcolm McLean
<malcolm.mclean5 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> On Sep 27, 9:29 pm, p... at informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
> wrote:
>> On the other hand, with the dynamic typing mindset, you might even wrap
>> your values (of whatever numerical type) in a symbolic expression
>> mentionning the unit and perhaps other meta data, so that when the other
>> module receives it, it may notice (dynamically) that two values are not
>> of the same unit, but if compatible, it could (dynamically) convert into
>> the expected unit.  Mission saved!
>>
> I'd like to design a language like this. If you add a quantity in
> inches to a quantity in centimetres you get a quantity in (say)
> metres. If you multiply them together you get an area, if you divide
> them you get a dimeionless scalar. If you divide a quantity in metres
> by a quantity in seconds you get a velocity, if you try to subtract
> them you get an error.

Sounds just like Frink:
http://futureboy.us/frinkdocs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frink

Cheers,
Chris
--
http://blog.rebertia.com