C# dynamic: A bad idea?
It seems like the most talked about thing on the street for code monkeys coming out of PDC is the introduction of dynamic typing. I'm trying very hard to understand why this is a good idea. Nikhil Kothari makes a good case for it interacting with Javascript from Silverlight, but that strikes me as a fringe case. I guess there's a part of me that is curious to know if this came out of a science project or actual customer need.
With all of the mucking around I've done in Javascript the last two years, given the various AJAX frameworks, I can't say I'll ever be particularly happy about the lack of real types. It's just such a pain to debug. And in C#, ever since the invention of generics, which still clue in the compiler and Intellisense, dynamic typing seems even less useful.
Maybe my biggest fear is abuse. While I've worked in very good shops with solid code review practices and some decent ground rules on coding standards, I've also seen the crap out there. I still cringe at things like DataSets and DataAdapters.
Perhaps my fears are unfounded. I thought using the var keyword was a recipe for death, and now I can't imagine not using it. In the mean time, it'll be interesting to see the various computer science geeks debate this one.