> Sure, But allow me this silly analogy. > > Going out on a full test-drive will also reveal your tires are flat. > So if you one has to be dropped, a full test drive or a tire check > it would certainly be the tired check. But IMO the tire check > is still usefull.
But you could write it as test - including not only a look (which resembles the limited capabilities of typechecking), but testing the air pressure, looking at the tyre type and see that it won't match the rainy conditions... > Hey, I'm all for testing. I never suggested testing should be dropped > for declarations The testing is IMHO more valuable than typechecking. The latter one actually _limits_ me. See e.g. the java IO-Api for a very bloated way of what comes very naturally with python. Duck-typing at it's best. The only reason I see typechecking is good for is optimization. But that is not the problem with JAVA/.NET anyway. And could possibly be done with psyco. > I wonder how experienced are these programmers? I know I had this > feeling when I started at the univeristy, but before I left I > already wrote my programs in rather small pieces that were tested > before moving on. <snip> > Again I do have to wonder about how experienced these programmers are. Well - surely they aren't. But that is beyond your control - you can't just stomp into a company and declare your own superiority and force others your way. I was astonished to hear that even MS just recently adopted test-driven development for their upcoming windows vista. And they are commonly seen as sort of whiz-kid hiring hi-class company, certified CMM Levelo 6 and so on.... The discussion is somewhat moot - typechecking is not nonsense. But matter of factly, _no_ programm runs without testing. And developing a good testing culture is cruicial. Where OTH a lot of large and successful projects exist (namely the python ones, amongst others..) that show that testing alone without typechecking seems to be good enough. Diez -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
