On 12/12/2011 12:59 AM, Mike Meyer wrote:
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:34:07 -0500 Ned Batchelder
wrote: Richard, I don't think I can provide you with a "why" for dynamic typing.
And this is the wrong place to ask. Dynamic typing and naming objects dates back to the precursors to LISP in the mid 50s. You should be asking the people who made that decision.
List was designed for writing algorithms.
By the same token, have you asked anyone why C/Java/etc. have static typing and name locations? It's an equally valid question.
C was designed for writing a computing machine operating system with mutable sequential memory slots numbered from 0 to 2**n - 1. In this respect, Python is much more like List than C, even though its syntax is more like C. -- Terry Jan Reedy