4.3 Static typing: benefits, drawbacks and ways to minimise them, C#

4.3 Static typing: benefits, drawbacks and ways to minimise them

//4.3 Static typing: benefits, drawbacks and ways to minimise them

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace Rextester
{
    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //C# is a language with static typing. 
            //This means that the type of every variable or expression is known at compile time.
            //This is what makes tools such as intellisense (code completion), navigation to type definition, 
            //automatic namespace resolution and many others possible.
            //To me this is something that makes code more readable too.
            
            //Because of this there is no language built-in way to define types dynamically (i.e. during execution)
            //For example in javascript you could do something like that (http://rextester.com/BBDYW2959)            
            //var b=user_inputed_value, c=user_inputed_value;
            //var a = {};
            //if(b < c)
            //{
            //    a.Thing = {Some: "test", Property: 25};
            //}
            //else
            //{
            //    a.Thing = {SomeThing: "enirely", Else: "."};
            //}
            //print(a.Thing.Some)
            //
            //So what is a.Thing is not known at compile time and is totally dependent on a runtime value of b < c
            //This is probably a bad thing to do anyway, so C# won't let you do that (easily at least).
            
            //However sometimes you would need a class quickly just for something local. For that there are nested classes, i.e. classes defined in another class.
            var fruit = new Fruit();
            fruit.UsingNestedClass();
            
            //Another times you don't even want to define a class for something temporary. You could use anonymous types.
            //These are special classes that compiler will define for you, and will give some name to them. Everything is still known at compile time.            
            var anonym = new { SomeString = "string", Number = 5 };
            Console.WriteLine(anonym.SomeString);
            Console.WriteLine(anonym.GetType());
            
            //Finally you could extend types using partial classes. So if you have a class with partial modifier (as is ExtendMe class below)
            //you could define another class with this name somewhere else in the same namespace and add more functionality to it (as does the second declaration of ExtendMe class)
            var ex = new ExtendMe();
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Property);
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Hm());
            
            //These features and some others (like var keyword) makes C# feel like dynamically typed language (in a good sense), while still keeping it statically typed.
        }
    }
    
    public class Fruit
    {
        public void UsingNestedClass()
        {
            var nested = new SomeNestedClass();
            Console.WriteLine(nested.Whatever());
        }
        
        class SomeNestedClass
        {
            public string Whatever()
            {
                return "Whatever";
            }
        }
    }
    
    public partial class ExtendMe
    {
        public string Property = "Property";
    }
    public partial class ExtendMe
    {
        public string Hm()
        {
            return "Hm";
        }        
    }
}


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