At least the part where you gradually specify the types in your program manually and optionally enforce the types statically can be done in Python today, see mypy.

So you're saying a whole class of bugs gets eliminated, but also maintain the code is not necessarily better in any way? I fail to follow your logic.

Note that you two are not discussing the same kind of "type" here, even though they share a word. Dynamic type systems can be regarded as static type systems where all values have a single type. However, Python has been gaining optional static typing capabilities . See mypy, PEP 483, PEP 484 and also the typing and typeshed) modules.

Your data passing through someone else's servers doesn't automatically imply they have means of decrypting that data. Clients can generate keys themselves (or negotiate them securely with each other, in the case of asymmetric encryption) and keep them secret. Data encrypted in such a way can be stored wherever you want without the party owning the infrastructure being able to read it.

This is completely wrong. Modern cryptographically secure PRNGs can generate practically unpredictable sequences of as many numbers you'd like from an initial seed of >= 256 bits of entropy. This is actually how modern cryptography works in general: you wouldn't expect a 256-bit AES key to suddenly become insecure and predictable after encrypting a certain amount of data, would you? Why would a CSPRNG be any different?

In fact, both /dev/random and /dev/urandom are CSPRNGs. /dev/random is *not* a true RNG. It's just a CSPRNG that tries to reseed constantly and blocks when it can't based on an /estimate/ of the available entropy, but this constant reseeding is unnecessary for the same reason that we don't have to cycle AES keys constantly. It may make things harder for some contrived threat model when the attacker is able to glean your PRNG state periodically, but the practicality of this model is doubtful. djb has a very good article on this.

To put it bluntly, a serial killer can have well-developed theory of mind but no empathy whatsoever. Theory of mind refers to the ability to simulate the minds of other beings to deduce things about their internal state.

Not "following the theory of mind", rather "had well-developed theory of mind". Despite the name, the term denotes not a theory but an ability of the mind (a specific construct of the mind). It's a term in the same category as terms like perception, self-awareness, decision-making, etc.

Oh god, Slashdot still doesn't support Unicode in comments? If anyone is interested, my previous comment should have contained the Chinese characters and pinyin for "gongfu" as can be seen here.

See this.

"kung fu" is an alternative transliteration of (gngfu) which means "skill attained through hard work and effort". In this sense the term "kung fu" can signify a very high profficiency in any skill or art, not just martial arts. In fact, the connotation of "kung fu" with martial arts came about only in the 20th century. Therefore, the shi fu of science and engineering can be said to have a great gongfu (kung fu) in science and engineering.

Except that it has been proven impossible for a local hidden variable theory (which is what you are suggesting) to be able to replicate all of the results of quantum mechanics. This result is called Bell's theorem. This essentially means that either the universe is non-deterministic or it is not completely local (i.e. there are effects not caused by local forces). Either that or counterfactual definiteness does not hold (since Bell's theorem relies on it) due to the results of any experiment and the choice of measurement procedure for that experiment being inseparably linked through exactly the same deterministic factors. In other words, counterfactual definiteness being false means that, given an experiment producing a result A through measurement P, it makes no sense to ask "what would have happened if we chose measurement Q instead?" since the very same deterministic factors that caused result A also caused the experimenter to choose measurement P. While this is possible, it is extremely implausible.

Except that it was proven impossible for a local hidden variable theory (which is what you are suggesting) to reproduce the results of quantum mechanics. This result is called Bell's theorem. This means that either the universe is non-deterministic or it is not completely local (i.e. there are effects which cannot be attributed to a local force). Either that or counterfactual definiteness does not hold, which would essentially mean that the result of any experiment and the choice of measurement the experimenter made for that experiment are both inseparably linked by being caused by the same deterministic factors (i.e. the experimenter got result A when doing a measurement Q and it makes no sense to ask "what would have happened if he chose measurement P instead?" since his choice of measurement was predetermined by exactly the same factors that made the result A). This is possible, but very implausible.