static, dynamic, strong and weak (was RE: PEP 285: Adding a bool type)

[Alex Martelli]

Gerhard Häring wrote:

> * Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> [2002-04-10 10:34 +0000]:
>> (let's PLEASE forget that unnamed language where you must use + only
>> to add integers and +. to add floats... have they changed it yet?-).
> 
> No. Why is this so bad, except for overloading operators in subclassed
> numeric types? Dunno if Ocaml can even do that.

It is "so bad" because it loses polymorphism.  Polymorphism being good, 
losing it wantonly is ungood (there IS no ill-effect to a polymorhpic +,
of course, as at least Standard ML amply testifies -- let's not even
get into Haskell and its wonderful typeclass-based polymorphism).


Alex