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How do you program differently in dynamic languages?

Asked 2008-12-18T20:24:22.210
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How would someone who really knows how to take advantage of dynamic programming languages approach programming differently than someone working in a static language?

I'm familiar with the whole debate over static versus dynamic typing, but that's not what I'm getting at. I'd like to discuss problem solving techniques that are practical in dynamic languages but not in static languages.

Most of the code I've seen written in dynamic programming languages isn't very different than code written in static programming languages. As the saying goes, you can write FORTRAN in any language, and many people do. But some people use dynamic programming languages to solve problems in a way that wouldn't easily translate into, for example, C++. What are some of their techniques?

What are some good resources that discuss how to use dynamic programming languages? Not books on language syntax or API reference, but resources on problem solving approaches that take advantage of dynamic language capabilities.

EDIT (1/5/2009): I appreciate the answers below, but they don't seem to account for the huge increases in productivity that dynamic language advocates say they experience.

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Dynamic languages are capable of executing code which was created at run-time. This is very dangerous if malicious code is injected. But very powerful if you can sanitize the environment.

I think Javascript people do this by executing JSON files.

answered 2008-12-18T21:16:35.147

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