> It's not the compile time text processing that's interesting
You've talked right past me. Metaprogramming is not compile time text processing.
> Honestly even if some of this were possible with metaprogramming, my intuition is that it would be much more verbose and complex.
No. It's probably even how the Microsoft team are achieving the typing you're talking about. The special sauce here isn't as special as you think.
> I think we're reaching a bit of an impasse
Not really. I was just saying that what you're talking about is totally possible with metaprogramming. Not making some rhetorical play.
> José Valim's blog post on static typing ended with an announcement that they've sponsored a PhD student to work on these problems.
That's specifically because strict static typing with guards^ is at least difficult, but maybe impossible, and that's what the PhDs are trying to figure out. However, dialyzer isn't as hobbled as you imagine/purport it to be – the crux of my counterargument – and actual experience trumps speculation or casual reading on the topic.
FYI, guards and pattern matching are one of the reasons why Elixir is so damn expressive, and this kind of function typing isn't available/possible in most non-functional languages
^ https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/guards.html
You've talked right past me. Metaprogramming is not compile time text processing.
> Honestly even if some of this were possible with metaprogramming, my intuition is that it would be much more verbose and complex.
No. It's probably even how the Microsoft team are achieving the typing you're talking about. The special sauce here isn't as special as you think.
> I think we're reaching a bit of an impasse
Not really. I was just saying that what you're talking about is totally possible with metaprogramming. Not making some rhetorical play.
> José Valim's blog post on static typing ended with an announcement that they've sponsored a PhD student to work on these problems.
That's specifically because strict static typing with guards^ is at least difficult, but maybe impossible, and that's what the PhDs are trying to figure out. However, dialyzer isn't as hobbled as you imagine/purport it to be – the crux of my counterargument – and actual experience trumps speculation or casual reading on the topic.
FYI, guards and pattern matching are one of the reasons why Elixir is so damn expressive, and this kind of function typing isn't available/possible in most non-functional languages
^ https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/guards.html