I entirely agree with you: the default numeric type in computing should be the n... | Hacker News

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samatman on Dec 12, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Things end users care about but programmers don't

I entirely agree with you: the default numeric type in computing should be the numeric tower, with floats chosen on an opt-in basis where their properties are useful.

Also, zero shouldn't test as false in conditional statements, that's what we have booleans for (sorry, lisp friends nodding along until this moment, the empty list shouldn't be falsy either: just false, and None/nil).

aliceryhl on Dec 12, 2019 [–]

I mean the type system should just reject using integers in conditionals all together.

samatman on Dec 12, 2019 | [–]

I like dynamic type systems well enough, they have their place. Clearly what you say should be true of a static type system.

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