Python Lint? (was "Can Python supplant Java?")

[Cameron Laird]

In article <mailman.1030039414.14818.python-list at python.org>,
Webb Sprague  <wsprague100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Hi All, 
>
>It seems to me that it would be pretty easy to address
>the type checking question by some thing like the
>following:
>
>When you are going to use a variable, assign it a
>default in the appropriate type (stringv = '', intv =
>0, etc).  Run the Python script through a lint type
>program that would flag any variables assigned to
>without such a "declaration" or any variables assigned
>a new type.
>
>I have been helped by Perl's "use strict;" / "my"
>feature many times.  My idea might approximate it.
			.
			.
			.
Yes, this could be done.

I think it'd be the wrong answer to "the type-checking
question"; more precisely, it's a distraction from 
more meaningful validation mechanisms.

My sense of good Python style is that it's rather
relaxed about the notion of type hygiene you seem to
have in mind here, BUT big on gneral cleanliness and
testability.  Crudely, getting types right is a minor
issue.

<URL: http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=2426/uni1018986621203/0204h.htm >
might interest you.
-- 

Cameron Laird <Cameron at Lairds.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html