strong/weak typing and pointers

[Carl Banks]

If you paid attention
in your study of grammar, [...]

Please don't assume that someone who disagrees with you is either
uneducated or stupid. It's rather insulting and wholly inappropriate.

Testy? What, do you expect me to automatically give you credit for
having paid attention to some decades-ago schooling unrelated to you
field of work, even though I've never met or spoken to you?

Anyways, although you've claimed "rigid" is very specific in meaning,
based on some dictionary entries, I really don't see any arguments
that tried to refute my claim that "rigid" could be easily taken to
mean inability to reinterpret bits, or less easily to mean static
typing. Conversely, I also didn't see any good examples of how
"solid" could easily mean something else. (I thought the idea that it
could refer to data hiding quite a stretch, although not totally off
the wall. Nevertheless, I would say "rigid" is vastly more applicable
to interpreting bits than "solid" is to data hiding.)

I would like to see your ideas and thoughts about how applicable
"solid" and "rigid" are specifically to typing. I've already stated
my thoughts about this. What objections to you have those points?

 

[Alex Martelli]

My criteria is not whether the meaning is literal or figurative, but
whether it's specific. Solid is; rigid isn't.

Hmmmm... I like to bank with a solid bank --> they won't go bankrupt
tomorrow. Hopefully they're not rigid --> can accomodate to changing
circumstances. And the bank's officers have years of solid experience
at their jobs, and deserve my solid trust...


Alex

 

[Carl Banks]

Hmmmm... I like to bank with a solid bank --> they won't go bankrupt
tomorrow. Hopefully they're not rigid --> can accomodate to changing
circumstances. And the bank's officers have years of solid experience
at their jobs, and deserve my solid trust...

Heh. I can see how solid in the sense of solid bank could apply to a
typing system, as an overall description of how robust it is (but not
indicative of any dimension of typing in particular, although you
could of course say that particular dimension is solid). Python has
an overall solid typing system.

I don't see how solid in the sense of solid experience (i.e.,
uninterrupted) would apply to any aspect of typing very well, any more
than solid as in solid wood (not hollow) would.

I still think, in the end, rigid is more vague for this use. Good
example, though.