John Nagle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > (I'm writing as someone who's used and liked very strictly typed > languages like Ada and Modula.
Python is strictly typed (also known as "strongly typed" <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongly-typed>), because its objects know exactly what type they are and won't contort themselves into another type unless there's an explicitly defined method for doing so. I think you mean you're accustomed to "statically-typed languages", where names are restricted at compile-time in what values they can refer to. This is as opposed to Python being a "dynamically-typed language": names are not restricted in the type of object they can be bound to, and the type of a value is determined when that value is created <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system#Type_checking>. > Python actually does unusually well without declarations. Most > languages that don't have declarations run into difficulties. > Consider Basic, TCL, and Matlab, to name three rather diverse > examples. Python managed to avoid the problems those languages > have.) Those three diverse examples are all weakly typed languages. Since Python is strongly-typed and dynamically-typed, this could largely explain the difference you see in Python "doing unusually well without declarations" compared to those languages. -- \ "It is the responsibility of intellectuals to tell the truth | `\ and expose lies." -- Noam Chomsky | _o__) | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
