Dynamic And Static Typing: Some Interesting Reads
by Mike BennettWhat to know before debating type systems is a really good article discussing static and dynamic type systems and type inference. I found it via Dry Sellers CodeBetter.com blog post Sunday Thought: Embracing the Type System.
Related to that, if you’d like to learn more about type inference algorithms, have a read of Code Commit’s blog post What is Hindley-Milner? (and why is it cool?). The post gives an easy to understand overview of the Hindley-Milner type inference algorithm.
From a practical software development perspective, I see that according to Slashdot the speed of Javascript in Firefox has been improved by 20% to 30%. Firefox uses the SpiderMonkey Javascript Engine. Apparently the speed improvement is due to enabling type inference in the Javascript engine.
I wonder will SpiderMonkey’s speed improvements have a significant impact on Thwonk’s speed, esp. when I finish off the Thwonk code for caching and reusing JIT compiled Javascript?
