Could Python supplant Java?

[Mark McEahern]

[FISH]
> The way I look at it is this: when using a dynamically typed
> language, how often do I mix the type of data I store in a
> given variable?  Although a language may be able to convert
> between types transparently (for example, converting the string
> "123" into the integer 123) on the whole a given variable will
> be assumed by the software to carry one specific type of data
> only.

If you choose simplistic data types, yeah, it does seem like, Why on earth
would I need to do that?

But consider a file-like object (the canonical example of polymorphism).
All I care about is that this thing can be opened, closed, read, written to,
etc.  Do I really care that it's a "file" type?  Nope.

Cheers,

// mark

-