[Python-ideas] [Wild Idea] Static Ducks

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:04:46 pm Masklinn wrote:
> On 24 Sep 2009, at 01:40 , Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > The world disagrees with you:
> >
> > […]
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_typing
>
> Not really:
>  > It is the opposite of strong typing, and consequently the term
>  > weak
>
> typing has as many different meanings as strong typing does
>
> Go to "strong typing" and you have a list of 9 different (and not
> necessarily compatible) definitions of "strong typing".

How does Wikipedia stating that there are many definitions of weak 
typing support your assertion that "there is not [sic] definition of 
weak typing"? I think it is disingenuous of you to delete the text of 
yours I quoted. 

The terms weak and strong typing are very common use in the real world. 
If they don't have a single, formal, precise definition, that's too 
bad, but it doesn't prevent them from being useful so long as we 
remember that they are fuzzy terms. The English language is full of 
words and terms with multiple definitions and fuzzy gradings. We manage 
to communicate about relative differences in size quite well without a 
single objective and precise definition of "large", and we can 
communicate about relative differences in strength of the type system 
of languages quite well without a single objective and precise 
definition of type strength.




-- 
Steven D'Aprano