Rambles around computer science

DRANK

Diverting trains of thought, wasting precious timeSeven deadly sins of talking about “types”[Update: this article has beentranslated into Japanese!]My essay “In Search of Types” attempts to be a dispassionate review of some of the different concepts, purposes and attitudes surrounding the word “type” in programming. I imagine that my passions are still rather thinly veiled in places. But in this post I'm going to come out with a more unabashedly ranty take. Certain statements and attitudes really get up my nose. I was recently exposed to a few of these at Strange Loop (a great conference, I should add). So I've written down a list of “deadly sins” committed by many people (mis-)speaking about “types”I should add that the theme here is rhetoric. What gets up my nose is when people don't make honest, transparent arguments. Their conclusions needn't be wrong. I program in OCaml a reasonable amount, and it's plain that I get a lot of value from the type checker. But advocates of…