On Sat, 2004-08-28 at 01:14, Lothar Scholz wrote:
> Hello Alexey,
Hi,

> Typos are by definition easier to find in static typed programs.
"Statically typed" is certainly the main enabling factor here, but...

I specifically mentioned Java IDEs, as opposed to other statically typed
languages that I dealt with (C, C++, Pascal (Delphi), Fortran). My
reasons were:

1. 
Java language design tries very hard to protect a coder from himself,
E.g., if (a = 0) {} is a syntax error.

2. 
> This has nothing to do with the IDE, only with the compiler/parser.
Decent Java IDE gives you accurate code completion, continuous parsing
and compile on save. I.e., most of the time instead of typing names, you
select them from a drop-down of all visible identifiers in the scope
(with most likely choices at the top of the list). When you type
something, your typos get highlighted as soon as you type them, not
several minutes later when you compile and run unit tests. Correcting
them in this way doesn't break the flow at all - which is very pleasant.

3.
As a frequent code reviewer I've probably seen thousands of Java bugs,
but very small proportion of them were typos. This is drastically
different from my experience with all other languages, including both
Ruby and C/C++.

That's not to mention debugging, profiling, memory leak hunting and
other such things.

Best regards,
Alex