On October 3, 2005 3:27 PM Jens Axel Søgaard wrote: > > Bill Page wrote: >> On October 3, 2005 4:37 AM Michael Brickenstein wrote: > >>> ... Python is in fact a strongly typed language, which >>> doesn't do implicit conversions (at default), I only >>> mention this, as I know that axiom focuses very much on >>> a type system. >> >> As I understand it Python is a dynamically typed language. >> To use the word "strong" seems a little miss-leading. > > Most likely we just use the words differently, but I don't > see an inherent conflict between "dynamically" and "strong". >
I agree with you. The use of "strong" in this context is probably correct. But as the article that you cite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongly_typed points out, it is not a very useful distinction. A more relevant point is that Axiom is "statically" typed, meaning that types are associated with variables. But in Python types are associated with values. E.g. in Python we can write x=10 x="xxx" In the Axiom compilers we must write x:Integer so that x denotes some object from the domain Integer. E.g. x:=10 But x:="xxx" is a type error. On the other hand in Axiom the values themselves have no implicit type. For example 1 might mean 1$Integer 1$Float 1$SquareMatrix(2,Integer) etc. By the usual mathematical convention adopted by Axiom library programmers, 1 denotes the unit with respect to multiplication in some domain. Regards, Bill Page. _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list Axiom-developer@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
