Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Joachim Durchholz]

prunesquallor at comcast.net wrote:
> My point is that type systems can reject valid programs.

And the point of the guys with FPL experience is that, given a good type 
system [*], there are few if any practial programs that would be wrongly 
rejected.

[*] With "good type system", I mean a type system that has both 
parametric polymorphism (i.e. templates) and type inference (i.e. you 
don't have to write down any types, they are automatically determined by 
the compiler from usage).
Each of these facilities is mildly useful in a static-type context, but 
when they are combined in, say, Hindley-Milner (HM) fashion, the effect 
is awesome. Some of my awe came from the realization that the "how do 
you typecheck this?" challenges can actually be typechecked (though the 
technical details of the solutions were often wrong - nothing is perfect 
in this world.)

Regards,
Jo