Jochen Theodorou wrote:

Sorry, I'm not being very clear. When I said "error" I was talking about the programmer's intentions, I should have said "mistake" instead. In other words, I'm saying there are times when you want the extended checks (and other times you don't.) In those cases, it would be more helpful for the runtime to signal an error than to continue on with unintended (but valid according to the specs) semantics.

It sounds like you don't want to give the programmer the ability to override the default behavior. You don't want the programmer to be able to say "just find the method based on these types. Even if you can't prove it at compile time, trust me, these really are the types." You always want to check the declared types, in case the programmer makes a mistake. Essentially, when it comes to typing for efficiency, you never want to disable what amount to assertions. Am I understanding correctly?

I can see why you'd want to do that in places where performance isn't critical, as with any assertion. Perhaps it is a differing philosophy, but it makes sense to me to be able to turn those off in the small amount of code that's a performance bottleneck.

Or am I misunderstanding?

Best, Martin

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