Re: type-checking [Was: What is Perl?]

[Tom Christiansen]

>Several people have suggested strong typing as a feature, and have been shot
>down one by one.  However, I think it can be done without forcing it on
>everyone.

Can it?  Are you prepared to make everyone declare the full, formal, and
fancy types for the return values of all their functions?  

Consider how nasty "strong typing" will really become if you really
get it all the way, or how slipshod it will be if you only partway.

You now have to enforce typing of expressions.  (Gasp!)

For example, consider a function that is expected to return a list
of two values, the first a reference to a hash of arrays of integers
and the second a floating point number.  

--tom