If Sneetches with Stars use Java, and Sneetches without Stars use Ruby, who uses ML?

Update

: More than a few people have written that Steve Yegge's association of static typing with neatness and dynamic typing with slovenliness runs opposite to their impressions of the kinds of people who strongly prefer one or the other. I used Steve's terms in the original post, partly because I thought people would get the same joke I thought Steve was making. It look slike they don't, nobody wrote to say "LOL." I have changed the terms to something that represents what I think of the cultural divide between programmers who like Java and programmers who like Ruby.

What is Stariness?

Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements; they are the only ones which can correctly be labelled "wrong."

Raymond Smullyan



final

final String snafu = "situation normal...";



snafu

"situation normal..."

snafu

"situation normal..."

String

snafu

"situation normal..."

String

boolean

final boolean foo = true;

// code without assignments to foo

if (foo) {

// do something

}

else {

// do something else

}



if

// do something

A formalist is one who cannot understand a theory unless it is meaningless.

foo.bar(5)

MethodNotImplemented

MethodNotImplemented

Back to inferences

// do something

// do something else

final String[] words = { "foo", "bar", "blitz" };

final int word_length = words.length;

final String[] anagrams = new String[word_length];



final words = { "foo", "bar", "blitz" };

final word_length = words.length;

final anagrams = new String[word_length];



So why can’t the Sneetches without stars use type inference?

Programmed. In me somewhere, he thought, there is a matrix fitted in place, a grid screen that cuts me off from certain thoughts, certain actions. And forces me into others. I am not free. I never was, but now I know that; that makes it different.

Philip K. Dick, "The Electric Ant"



final words = { "foo", "bar", "blitz" };

final word_length = words.length;

final anagrams = new String[word_length];



final

words = { "foo", "bar", "blitz" };

word_length = words.length;

anagrams = new String[word_length];



final

final

final

final

Are Sneetches with stars ever starless?

MethodNotImplemented

SQLException

Class.forName(...)

Eating cake

duck

Computer languages differ not so much in what they make possible, but in what they make easy.

Larry Wall



Why would the Sneetches without stars use starless languages?