the definition of "strong" (was Re: Why isn't Python king of the hill?)

[Steven Haryanto]

Sorry for bringing back an oldish post, but how does one define
"strong typing" and "weak typing" vs "static typing" and "dynamic
typing"? I've always thought that Python has _strong_ typing,
but it is not static. So it is unlike Perl which has weak and
dynamic typing (although under -w Perl will issue warnings if
you try to mix string and numeric in expressions).

I would say _static_ typing is the one that will make me sleep
better, because once I tell the compiler that my foo variable is
an int, it will stay an int through the course of execution.

Steve
http://stevne.haryan.to/


At 25/05/2001 04:54, Richard P. Muller wrote:
>Something about preaching to the choir comes to mind, here...
>
>In any case, most of the people in this newsgroup (myself very much
>included) would agree with you on improved productivity in Python.
>
>That being said, there are some advantages to Java. It's built into
>almost every web browser on the net. Hard to overstate the importance of
>being everywhere. Jython is getting close to putting Python everywhere
>that Java is, but (IMHO) one loses some of the simplicity of Python
>along the way. Moreover, Java is strongly typed. Sure, you can staple
>strong typing into Python, but having it there all the time occasionally
>lets one sleep better. Finally, and probably most importantly, managers
>who know nothing about programming have some vague feeling that Java is
>a good thing.
>
>Rick