Life with Dynamic Typing

As with many things in the realm of Computer, some choices involve big tradeoffs. One of these is choosing to write software with a dynamic programming language. Having built some interesting and impactful user facing applications for many interesting companies over the years I can say with confidence that I personally enjoy and in many cases prefer the flexibility afforded by dynamic typing. However unlike some worshippers at the altar of Dynamism I don my Cap of Discernment +1 and admit:

Not everything is awesome. - Rich Hickey

Well engineered non-trivial systems written in dynamic languages embrace runtime assertions especially near public interfaces. For example here’s a snippet of code from React.js that does exactly that:

_renderValidatedComponent : function () { /* ... */ invariant ( renderedComponent === null || renderedComponent === false || ReactElement . isValidElement ( renderedComponent ), ' %s.render(): A valid ReactComponent must be returned. You may have ' + ' returned undefined, an array or some other invalid object. ' , inst . constructor . displayName || ' ReactCompositeComponent ' ); return renderedComponent ; },

Embracing assertions means a significantly more pleasant experience for newcomer and expert alike. While the learned can wax poetic for days about the utility of strong types for program design, the immediate benefit of stronger types is simply catching errors sooner and closer to the source of the problem! Well placed runtime assertions deliver precisely the same benefit.

As the above React.js assertion alludes, asserting function arguments and return values yields the most bang for the buck.

ClojureScript like Clojure has direct support for this pattern in the form of :pre and :post conditions. This is yet another old good idea.

Here’s an example from Om 0.8.0. The get-props helper validates that its argument is a valid Om component:

( defn get-props "Given an owning Pure node return the Om props. Analogous to React component props." ([ x ] { :pre [( component? x )]} ( aget ( .-props x ) "__om_cursor" )) ([ x korks ] { :pre [( component? x )]} ( let [ korks ( if ( sequential? korks ) korks [ korks ])] ( cond-> ( aget ( .-props x ) "__om_cursor" ) ( seq korks ) ( get-in korks )))))

:pre takes a vector of arbitrary predicate expressions, they must all return a truthy value otherwise the program will crash.

:post conditions are similarly useful. For example it’s a common pattern to declare a protocol that other users can extend. This permits the design of pluggable systems - the idea is little different from Java interfaces, Go interfaces, Objective-C protocols, Haskell typeclasses etc.

( defprotocol IReturnEven ( -return-even [ x ]))

One useful pattern to pair with this - provide a common entry point:

( defn return-even [ x ] ( -return-even x )

The benefit of the common entry point is that implementers can focus on their logic and the common entry point can provide shared assertion checking:

( defn return-even [ x ] { :pre [( number? x )] :post even? } ( -return-even x )

Now people that want to extend your system will get early errors when their implementations fail to pass the assertion.

Of course you may need to place an assertion in some arbitrary location in your program. In ClojureScript assert satisifies this role. In fact :pre and :post are just sugar for automatically generating assert s.

Elision

LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing. - Alan Perlis

The problem with good invariant checking is that it often comes with a runtime cost. React.js actually elides invariant from production builds (Update: Scott Feeney clarified this, React.js does not elide the logic, just the strings). If you’re a JavaScript developer this is yet another reason why a build step might not be a bad idea.

All ClojureScript developers again have a leg up - simply provide :elide-asserts true to your production build config and be on your merry way.

Conclusion

:pre and :post conditions are a simple way to provide faster failures for simpler reasoning about dynamic programs. They also work quite nicely as an extended form of documentation about the intent of the program.

As always it’s important to use this feature with moderation, don’t forget to don your own Cap of Discernment +1.

Happy hacking!