While I agree that writing code defensively is the way to go when a team is involved and/or you plan to have to maintain the code for years, I don't think it's the language's job to take away all the 'sharp objects'.
Programmers should be smart enough to know what is sharp and how to avoid it when needed, and they should collaborate enough that no one can sneak through sloppy code.
I'd rather have the ability to do certain things and rarely use it than not have the ability at all. If other programmers are constantly doing really dumb things, don't use their code in your projects.
Even in strict languages, there's rarely anything that absolutely prevents you from doing what you need to do; they just make it harder to do bad things accidentally. Languages like Ruby actually make it harder to do things correctly, and constantly tempt you with hideous shortcuts.
Again, I view programming teams as groups of nosy toddlers. Thus, any sentence beginning with "programmers should be..." is wrong by definition. Programmers are people, and people make mistakes. People also get lazy, try to take shortcuts, and therefore make even more mistakes. The way that people minimize mistakes is by setting up systems that make it harder to do wrong things. This is a fundamental tenet of engineering.
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While I agree that writing code defensively is the way to go when a team is involved and/or you plan to have to maintain the code for years, I don't think it's the language's job to take away all the 'sharp objects'.
Programmers should be smart enough to know what is sharp and how to avoid it when needed, and they should collaborate enough that no one can sneak through sloppy code.
I'd rather have the ability to do certain things and rarely use it than not have the ability at all. If other programmers are constantly doing really dumb things, don't use their code in your projects.
Even in strict languages, there's rarely anything that absolutely prevents you from doing what you need to do; they just make it harder to do bad things accidentally. Languages like Ruby actually make it harder to do things correctly, and constantly tempt you with hideous shortcuts.
Again, I view programming teams as groups of nosy toddlers. Thus, any sentence beginning with "programmers should be..." is wrong by definition. Programmers are people, and people make mistakes. People also get lazy, try to take shortcuts, and therefore make even more mistakes. The way that people minimize mistakes is by setting up systems that make it harder to do wrong things. This is a fundamental tenet of engineering.