Language wars

Language wars

I expect the computer to detect and complain about my programming errors as soon as possible. Static typing errors can be detected during compilation and need not wait until execution time.

Don't forget that you have to execute the code anyway to test it. Now the real question is that which is faster: compile (and compile and compile...) C/C++/Java source and execute, or compile a perl/python/ruby/erlang/etc. source, execute, compile, execute, etc. It depends on the problem domain, but the later could be faster in the long run.

Type errors are probably found earlier with C (although the automatic numeric conversions could be tricky), but program logic errors might be found later. I work with a dynamically typed language and sometimes miss the compiler help with types - but certainly don't miss the "type make, then go for a coffee" days of C++ programming.

And I haven't even mentioned buffer overflows plaguing C programs since forever, where the compiler won't help much.