[Grace-core] Fwd: "Type Dynamic" or "Unknown Type"

[James Noble]

An excerpt from a discussion that kicked off at WG2.16 in Aarhus:

is "Unknown" a better name for "type Dynamic" than "Dynamic"?

the problems are - of course - that "type Dynamic" is a "static type",
and that no object ever has a "dynamic type" of "Dynamic" :-)


so, perhaps we could consider renaming type "Dynamic" to "Unknown"

James

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Laurence Tratt <laurie at tratt.net>
> Subject: Re: Dynamic type
> Date: 26 November 2013 11:31:46 AM NZDT
> To: Ron Garcia <rxg at cs.ubc.ca>
> Cc: James Noble <kjx at ecs.vuw.ac.nz>
> 
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 10:49:04AM -0800, Ron Garcia wrote:
> 
> Hi Ron,
> 
>> Now that the term is starting to wind down (thank heavens!) here in
>> Vancouver, I'm hoping to work my way back into this conversation.  In the
>> meantime, though, I did want to note that we have written up the work that
>> I presented at the working group, and have used the terminology "unknown"
>> throughout, rather than "dynamic".  Two things seem to come from this:  one
>> is that I'm hoping that Laurie will be happy about it :).  The second,
>> really interesting, thing is that I really now think that "unknown" is
>> exactly the right word, and best expresses what our technical development
>> is trying to conceptually analyze.  So…thanks a lot for the great
>> conversation!  It's had an effect, not just on the terminology, but also on
>> how I think about what I'm doing.
> 
> If only I could convince everyone to make me happy with their research :)
> 
> More seriously, I think "unknown" is a good term, and I hope it helps people
> like me (who are outside the core gradual typing world) better understand
> some of the cool work you are doing. I look forward to seeing what you guys
> publish!
> 
> 
> Laurie
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