Qi is completely type inferring, so it proves the type correctness of the code at compile time from a minimum number of declarations, like the ML family of languages.
However, as this is optional, it can also be switched off in places to handle code that the type system can not prove correct.
To make a similar system work, you'd have to label the inputs and return type of each function, and enforce the consistency of this, all at compile time. There is a complete prolog system buried in QI allowing the types to self reference and be turing complete in terms of complexity.
Having said that, the whole of QI is only meant to be 4k lines of common lisp and under an MIT license, so it'd be quite easy to port the interesting bits of it once the core of arc has stabilised.
pg, I was referring to Jekyll's explanation of optional typing. The 'maybe' means that I don't know the value in it, I've just heard that some people like it.
I have another meta question. When you post an external link in the title of a submission it makes it hard to get to the comment thread. Any chance of a link to the comments in the description of the RSS item?
Yep, I'm ok with you on this one too. Particularly annoying when you open a new tab in Firefox to read the thread later, but get redirected to another site...
it would be nice if we made specs to test the language, a la Rubinius, while the language is still small. Then, we could say with greater confidence of the merge.
I think that people want comments to have value in them. The best example of why this might get downmodded is if you look at it on the comments page it just looks like +1 without any context. So in that case it looks like a pretty vacuous comment. I think that if you enjoy a submission just upmod it. If you have something to add to the conversation add it.
There are some issues with converting procedures to strings. Procedures that are closures can contain references to the environment. Then if you put an (eval) in there that makes it impossible without carrying around the entire lexical environment in the string of the procedure.
