Yacao Wang wrote: > Hi, I'm a newbie to Python. I've recently read some books about this > language and none of them have answered my question. > As a dynamically-typed language Python doesn't need any form of type > signature which makes the syntax very clean and concise. However, type > signatures are not only a kind of information provided for the compiler, but > also for the programmer, or more important, for the programmer. Without it, > we have to "infer" the return type or required agument types of a function, > and this can't be done without seeing the implementation of it, and > sometimes it is still difficult to extract the above information even if the > implementation is available. Haskell can also determine type information > dynamically, but it still supports and recommends the programming style with > type signatures, which makes the code very readable and maitainable. As I > understand, Python relies too much on run-time type-checking, that is, > whenever you give the wrong type, you just end up with an exception, which > is logically correct, but not that useful as type signatures. > Any ideas on this issue? > > -- > Alex > Hi Yacao/Alex, Try these: "How to duck type? - the psychology of static typing in Ruby" http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/100511 "3-31-04 I'm Over It"
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:6XW473VSflcJ:www.mindview.net/WebLog/log-0053+%2B%22duck+typing%22+%2B+%22static+typing%22+%2Bpython&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a It seems that the latent or duck typing, used in dynamic languages is counter-intuitve to those from a static typing background. Nevertheless, it does work, and work well. - Paddy. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list