I agree if we’re talking at the granularity of function signatures, but beyond that I don’t. Every language supports type inference when chaining expressions. Inference on local variables is often a way of breaking up large expressions without forcing people to repeat obvious types.
As for inferring code from types, scrub the symbol names off any production java code and see how much sense it makes. If you really go down this path you’re quickly going to start wanting refinement types or dependent types. Both great research fields, but the harsh reality is that there’s no evidence that either field is production ready, or that either solves problems in readability.
The best technologies for reading code are all about interactive feedback loops that allow you to query and explore. In some languages that is type-based, with features like dot-completion, go-to-definition, and being able to hover to see types and doc comments. And just knowing whether the code compiles provides useful information.
In other languages, like Python and JavaScript, that feedback loop is value-based, and in some ways far richer and more powerful, but it suffers from being unavailable in most contexts. Most importantly, the lack of error messages is not a very useful signal.
I am obviously no authority, but my honest opinion is that type inference is completely orthogonal to the questions that actually matter in code readability, so blaming it is silly.
I agree if we’re talking at the granularity of function signatures, but beyond that I don’t. Every language supports type inference when chaining expressions. Inference on local variables is often a way of breaking up large expressions without forcing people to repeat obvious types.
As for inferring code from types, scrub the symbol names off any production java code and see how much sense it makes. If you really go down this path you’re quickly going to start wanting refinement types or dependent types. Both great research fields, but the harsh reality is that there’s no evidence that either field is production ready, or that either solves problems in readability.
The best technologies for reading code are all about interactive feedback loops that allow you to query and explore. In some languages that is type-based, with features like dot-completion, go-to-definition, and being able to hover to see types and doc comments. And just knowing whether the code compiles provides useful information.
In other languages, like Python and JavaScript, that feedback loop is value-based, and in some ways far richer and more powerful, but it suffers from being unavailable in most contexts. Most importantly, the lack of error messages is not a very useful signal.
I am obviously no authority, but my honest opinion is that type inference is completely orthogonal to the questions that actually matter in code readability, so blaming it is silly.