On Wednesday, June 5, 2013 7:29:44 PM UTC-7, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 11:56 AM, Steven D'Aprano > > <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > > > On Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:59:31 -0700, Russ P. wrote: > > >> As for Python, my experience with it is that, as > > >> your application grows, you start getting confused about what the > > >> argument types are or are supposed to be. > > > > > > Whereas people never get confused about the arguments in static typed > > > languages? > > > > > > The only difference is whether the compiler tells you that you've passed > > > the wrong type, or your unit test tells you that you've passed the wrong > > > type. What, you don't have unit tests? Then how do you know that the code > > > does the right thing when passed data of the right type? Adding an extra > > > couple of unit tests is not that big a burden. > > > > The valid type(s) for an argument can be divided into two categories: > > Those the compiler can check for, and those the compiler can't check > > for. Some languages have more in the first category than others, but > > what compiler can prove that a string is an > > HTML-special-characters-escaped string? In a very few languages, the > > compiler can insist that an integer be between 7 and 30, but there'll > > always be some things you can't demonstrate with a function signature. > > > > That said, though, I do like being able to make at least *some* > > declaration there. It helps catch certain types of error.
I recall reading a few years ago that Guido was thinking about adding optional type annotations. I don't know if that went anywhere or not, but I thought it was a good idea. Eventually I got tired of waiting, and I realized that I just wanted a statically typed language, so I started using one. Steven's view on static vs. dynamic typing are interesting, but I think they are "out of the mainstream," for whatever that's worth. Does that mean he is wrong? I don't know. But I do know that statically typed code just seems to me to fit together tighter and more solidly. Maybe it's a liberal/conservative thing. Do liberals tend to favor dynamic typing? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
