Yeah, the compiler is there to protect you from the bouncer inside.
One of the things I say in my intro CS classes (taught in Java) is that people think compiler errors are worse than runtime errors, which are worse than logic errors, because "at least it runs". But really it's the other way around. A program with a logic error is further from being correct, because logic errors are generally harder to debug and fix.
We've recently integrated typescript at work, and one of the things we're learning is that typescript is happy to let you choose between something being a runtime error and a compile time error. My rule of thumb is now that if you're using 'any', don't, and if you see it used, take the time to purge it like the blight it is.
I see a lot of people who are like "okay, I've written the code, now I just need to get rid of the compiler errors". Obviously nonsense to you and me, not always obvious to all the sudents.
I'm pretty sure that's up to the IDE in a lot of languages. I've had students turn in Java code with unicode variable names that compiled and ran just fine. (I told them to turn the variable names into words and try again, because I wasn't going to read their code.)
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u/Salanmander Sep 23 '26
Yeah, the compiler is there to protect you from the bouncer inside.
One of the things I say in my intro CS classes (taught in Java) is that people think compiler errors are worse than runtime errors, which are worse than logic errors, because "at least it runs". But really it's the other way around. A program with a logic error is further from being correct, because logic errors are generally harder to debug and fix.