Thu Jun 05 12:55:14 PM +08 2025 #43 ✎

The essential, most stubborn problems in programming languages come from unavoidable tensions between conflicting desires and requirements. We want loosely coupled software components that can be easily reused, but we also want the performance benefits of tight coupling and specialization. We want flexible programming languages that do not impose upon our freedom of expression, but we also want the benefits of static program analysis and powerful safety guarantees. We want sophisticated type systems that allow specifying ever more complex invariants, but we also want readable type signatures that won’t regularly end up longer than the code itself.