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Type inference was a mistake
(borretti.me)
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this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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Programming Languages
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You should read the article, because it's pretty much a direct rebuttal with justifications to this exact argument. You've really just re-stated what the article disputes.
Which isn't to say you're wrong, I'd just be interested in your response to the arguments.
My response to the article is that you're sacrificing gains in language because some people use outdated tools. Code has more context than what is just written. Many times you can't see things in the code unless you dig in, for example responses from a database or key value store, or literally any external api. Type inference in languages that have bad IDE support leads to a bad experience, hence the author's views on ocaml. But in a language like Kotlin it's absolutely wonderful. If needed you can provide context, but otherwise the types are always there, you can view them easily if you're using a decent IDE, and type inference makes the code much more readable in the long run. I would say that a majority of the time, you do not care about the types in any application. You care about the data flow, so having a type system that protects you from mismatched types is much more important that requiring types to be specified.
Maybe I'm missing something:
Does type inference provide a practical benefit to you beyond saving you some keystrokes?
What tools do you use for code review? Do you do them in GitHub/gitlab/Bitbucket or are you pulling every code review directly into your IDE? How frequently do you do code reviews?
@Windex007 @snowe
Yes. Type-inference typically *knows better than me* what the types should be.
I frequently ask the compiler what code I need to write next by leaving a gap in my implementation and letting the compiler spit out the type of the missing section.
Can you explain why you wouldn't know what a type should be?
@Windex007
lexer :: Parser LexState (Vector Int, Vector Token)
lexer = do
(positions, tokens) <- _ nextPositionedToken
...
What goes where the underscore is in the above snippet?
I've never used Haskell, so I can barely read this as-is.
But sure: I have no idea, and I expect that's your point.
You as the writer, you don't know either? What if I could understand Haskell, is there an option to communicate that information to me? Or is the argument that nobody but the compiler and god need know? That having an awareness of the types has no value?
@Windex007
> You as the writer, you don’t know either?
Not until the compiler tells me.
> Or is the argument that nobody but the compiler and god need know? That having an awareness of the types has no value?
No, I want to know, because knowing the types has value. If the compiler has inference, it can tell me, if not, it can't.
I recognize that truly functional languages are their own beasts, with tons of amazing features provided by a ton of academic backing.
I will absolutely concede that I can't speak to them with a shred of competence. I don't know about the trade-offs and relative value propositions for pretty much anything in that space, let alone specifically w/ explicit typing.