Re: any type

[Robin Berjon]

Tanton Gibbs wrote:

Has there been any discussion about having an "any" type.
I realize that this can be accomplished with an untyped variable, but there
may be a reason not to do that.  Namely, there most probably will be some
sort of pragma like "use strict 'type'" which will ensure every variable is
typed.

I agree that it would be nice for uniformity. The way you conceive it, would all types derive from it?

I would
think that it would only hold objects, not things like int and string
(although they could be promoted ot Int and String automatically).

Few things in Java are more painful than the int/Integer, etc dichotomy and the fact that whatever accepts Object cannot take a primitive, and that what expects a primitive can't take its corresponding object. It would imho not be conceivable to not have auto-promotion here, lest we lose much dwimity.

--
Robin Berjon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Research Engineer, Expway
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