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Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

Nominal types versus structural types is basically the main distinction at this point (if we ignore .net, etc). I like both languages, happy to see them converge while keeping their defining characteristics

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Where do C# anonymous types fall? From a functional perspective, they are a purely structural type.

Here's a snippet of C# I wrote recently to transform some JSON:

    var transformed = media.Select(m => {
      var parts = m.Split('/');
    
      return new {
        addedAtUtc = "2023-05-15T05:59:31.398Z",
        originTripUid = parts[4],
        path = $"{parts[4]}/{parts[5]}",
        rank = "",
        size = 103978,
        stored = true,
        type = "document",
      };
    })

    File.WriteAllText(
      Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "output.json"),
      System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Serialize(transformed)
    );

It would be easy to mistake this as JS at a quick glance.

Anonymous types are nominal types (like all others in .NET). They are just auto-generated and auto-named.

Duck Typing at runtime is possible and to a degree checkable and compile-time.

I get that; that's why I qualified it as a "functional perspective" because even though the underlying implementation is an auto-generated, auto-named type, the functional usage of it is a structural type (with limitations).

They aren't structural because the following doesn't work in C#, but would work (with tweaks to make it valid code) in a structurally typed language such as TypeScript:

  var transformed = media.Select(m => {
        var parts = m.Split('/');
    
        return new {
    addedAtUtc = "2023-05-15T05:59:31.398Z",
    originTripUid = parts[4],
    path = $"{parts[4]}/{parts[5]}",
    rank = "",
    size = 103978,
    stored = true,
    type = "document",
     };
  }).ToList();
  
  transformed.AddRange(otherMedia.Select(m => {
        var parts = m.Split('/');
    
        return new {
    addedAtUtc = "2023-05-15T05:59:31.398Z",
    originTripUid = parts[4],
    path = $"{parts[4]}/{parts[5]}",
    rank = "",
    size = 103978,
    stored = true,
    type = "document",
    documentType = parts[6]
     };
  }));

Adding "documentType" breaks in C# but would work in a structurally typed language as a structural type checker can see that the second result fulfills all of the necessary properties. Doing this in C# would require creating an interface and being explicit.

Unless you were using the (yet unimplemented) exact types in TS. https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/12936

Sure, but that would be opt-in if it were ever implemented. I think both styles of type system have their pros and cons. I have loved the cross-pollination between C# and TS with great ideas flowing in both directions.

Runtime type systems: TS has none; C# has extensive RTTI

Function dispatch: TS is purely dynamic; C# has both static and dynamic

OOP: Mandatory in C#, optional in TS

Variance: Implicit in TS, explicit in C#

Numeric types: TS has one (number); C# has the entire signed/unsigned/float x 8/16/32/64-bit matrix

There's really no intentional effort to converge them.

Your list of differences is correct but not really what I meant. The points you listed are mostly due to JS runtime constraints. The choice of nominative vs structural type system is purely a design choice by the typescript team.

TS has two. number and bigint[0], corresponding to Number and BigInt in JS, respecitvely

[0]: https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/2/everyday-type...

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