[IronPython] Re: users-ironpython.com Digest, Vol 7, Issue 5

[Luis M. Gonzalez]

>>  I dunno if that's so attractive.  The more "seamless", the more
>>  problematic and unexpected the surprises the programmer will
>>  experience from the subtle disparities between the two languages.
>>
>>  Personally, i have enough trouble keeping things straight when i have
>>  to switch between javascript, C, and python ("is '&&' now the logical
>>  or bitwise 'and'?"), i shudder to imagine navigating the confusion
>>  when the differences are so subtle.  At least java and jython look
>>  different enough that it's obvious which one you're reading...
>>
>>  But this is all ever so hypothetical, i shouldn't complain yet!-)


I understand your concern. I used to think that way before trying out Boo, but really, it's not that complicated.
There's no significant difference in their syntax, which is almost identical. 
The difference is in the fact that Boo is statically typed, while Python is dynamic.
That means that in some cases you have to declare types (not very offen, because most of the time the types are authomatically inferred).

For example, you can type:  

a = 5  ---> ( you don't need to declare its type here, because it is inferred as "int" )
a = 'hello'  ( you can't do that, because "a" has been previously inferred as "int")

On the other hand, you can do that in Python (or Ironpython) because it is dynamic, not static.
The other significant difference is that although it is static, its type inference mechanism works most of the times, so you don't need to declare types.
For example, in C# you would have to type inplicity each variable's type: 

int a = 5;
or 
string a = "hello";
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