Could Python supplant Java?

[laotseu]

FISH wrote:
> laotseu <bdesth at nospam.free.fr> wrote in message news:<3D641F1F.5090905 at nospam.free.fr>...
> 
>>Woops. You should probably read about the difference between 'Strong vs 
>>Weak' and 'Dynamic vs Static' typing.
> 
> 
> Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough.
> 
> 
>>If you think that dynamic typing means that the string object '123' 
>>could be automagically converted to the integer object 123, you are 
>>*plain* wrong.
> 
> 
> Yes I know.  However, such weak features are often a feature of
> dynamic type languages.

you mean : a feature of some scripting languages ?-)
Try doing this in Lisp or Python...

>  If you read the text you'll see I start
> by saying I didn't see any reason to have a single variable which
> could hold any type of data.  The only use I've ever seen it put
> to was automatic translation (or re-interpretation, if you will)
> of data.

Er... Try writing some 'general' function (like qsort() in ansi C) 
without some 'generic' datatype. Why do you think C has void* and Java 
the Object base type ?

The use of C 's void * or java Object type is not that safe, and any 
cast error in C may have unpredictable result, while silently compiling.

So, as long as we go for your first arguments, I still think you're too 
confident in the compiler and not enough in the programmer !-)

Laotseu