Python Strings

[Erik Max Francis]

Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:

> The trouble with that kind of variable is that it forces
> strong typing, which is bad for those of us who prefer
> type-checking to be on another continent while we're busy
> trying to write code.  I have yet to learn the language
> (though I haven't learned Python yet; gearing up to do that)
> which is quite as loosely typed as I want.

Python is actually quite strongly typed, it just doesn't require
declarations of the types of variables to be used, and they can be
changed.

    a = 1               # a refers to an int
    a = '1'             # a now refers to a string
    a = open('/a/file') # a now refers to a file object

> Inform is the
> closest, but you can't always tell the difference between
> all types at runtime, which is troublesome occasionally.

That's sort of the flip side of weakly-typed languages; if they're
weakly typed then you have to play games when you _do_ need to know the
type of an object.

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