How to DuckType, or a case study of when lack of static typing bites

Hmm, one bug in a year, and it sounds like you found the source fairly
quickly. That’s not too bad if you ask me. :slight_smile:

···

On Monday, 24 May 2004 at 9:05:44 +0900, John Carter wrote:

So the lack of static typing just bit me.

I had a bug, somehow the wrong value crept into an object, and somewhere
much later, my program died. This is the nightmare scenario that grips
any static typer when he lets go of his static types.

Curiously enough in the year or so of slowly adding to this program, this was
the first time it really bit me. But then I tend to have fairly good Unit
Tests, so mostly such things get caught early.

But this one was evil, I had know idea at what level I had gone wrong. I
just had an error message “false::FalseClass does not respond to match”.


Jim Freeze
“I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
The answer is twelve? I think I’m in the wrong building.”
– Charles Schulz