strong/weak - dynamic/static [Was: Getting started]

[Alex Martelli]

Terry Reedy wrote:
        ...
>> If you find a way to name this behavior "static", you'll be well
>> placed for the yearly Humpty Dumpty award.
> 
> This is pretty inane.  Again, I specifically excluded 'this behavior'
> from my comments.  Anyway, my question *rhetorically* asked whether
> creation-time typing (which is fixed except for the exception that I
> excluded) is (to quote the OP) 'dynamic or static'.  I then suggested

In other words, your claim is that typing is fixed at creation time,
excluding the way in which an object's type can be changed after then
(showing, of course, that said type isn't fixed at all).

This makes just about as much sense as, say, claiming that a list's
length is fixed at creation time, excluding the ways in which the
list's length can be changed (which show, of course, that said
length isn't fixed at all).


> that this dichotomy does not fit Python very well.

That's your thesis, and I don't think you have brought any
substantial arguments in its favor.  I think that distinguishing
things that ARE indeed fixed at the time of an object's creation
(such as the length and contents of a tuple or string) from
things which are not fits Python quite well, and so does the
attempt to position it on the continuum between static and
dynamic extremes (just about ANY dichotomy doesn't fit any
realistically-complicated situation -- more often than not,
shades of gray are the underlying reality, black and white just
sometimes-useful, sometimes-misleading simplifications thereof
for modeling purposes -- this particular case, in my opinion, is
more useful and less misleading than most others).


Alex