Is Python type safe?

[Mark Jackson]

Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> writes:
> In article <QuJ5c.3008$G3.27398 at localhost>,
>  Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote:
> 
> > Roy Smith wrote:
> > 
> > > Neither C++ nor Python will let you add the integer 3 to the string 
> > > "four", but use different mechanisms to prevent it.  Oddly enough, Java 
> > > (in a perl-like, but admittedly convenient, stab at automagic 
> > > polymorphism) will let you add them.  No clue what C# does.
> > 
> > It's been a while since I Java-ed, but doesn't it "append" them, as in 
> > convert the integer to a string and then join the two strings, rather 
> > than "add" them (which I take to mean "calculate the sum of")?
> > 
> > (That's probably what you meant, but I'm just checking.  I'd be 
> > surprised to find that Java actually performed the string-to-value 
> > conversion implicitly.)
> > 
> > -Peter
> 
> Yes, "four" + 3 ==> "four3"
> 
> I could imagine a language where "4" + 3 ==> 7 (actually, I don't have 
> to imagine it, all I need do is look at perl).  But, a language where 
> "four" + 3 ==> 7 would be pretty bizarre :-)

And would the result of "quatre" + 7, say, depend on the locale setting?

-- 
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
    The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance.
				- Leonardo da Vinci