[Haskell-cafe] Strict type system allows for a maximum number of programming errors to be caught at compile time.

[Luke Palmer]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 9:34 AM, Casey Hawthorne <caseyh at istar.ca> wrote:
>>Strict type system allows for a maximum number of programming errors to be caught at compile time.
>
> I keep hearing this statement but others would argue that programming
> errors caught at compile time only form a minor subset of all errors
> caught.
>
> So, in functional programming languages with a strict type system,
> e.g. Haskell, do typing errors from a larger subset of all programming
> errors.

Absolutely!  Haskell developers trade debugging time for time arguing
with the compiler about the correctness of their code.

I'll give this meaningless anecdotal statistic:

Compiler says my code is right => My code is actually right   -- 60%
Compiler says my code is wrong => My code is actually wrong -- 95%

Haskell has a particular reputation for the former.

Luke