[Python-ideas] Python Isn't Perfect: adding a 'gotchas' section to the tutorial

[Terry Reedy]

On 12/12/2011 4:00 AM, Masklinn wrote:
> On 2011-12-12, at 09:55 , Terry Reedy wrote:
>> On 12/12/2011 12:59 AM, Mike Meyer wrote:
>>> On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:34:07 -0500
>>> Ned Batchelder<ned at nedbatchelder.com>   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.
> I think you meant "lisp" here ;)

Definitely.

>>> 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.
> On the other hand, there are very few typed assemblies.

The question of typing is somewhat orthogonal to that of naming value 
objects versus storage locations. There are strong stactic typed named 
value languages like ML. They even require different operators for int 
and float arithmetic, just like assembler.

Assemblers also type data versus address registers and may have signed 
versus unsigned int operations. But most typing has to be done by the 
programmer, just as C requires the programmer to do garbage collection.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy