Adding static typing to Python

[Alexander Jerusalem]

Has anyone heard of plans to add static type checking to Python? I
like Python very much but I don't use it for bigger projects because I
fear the testing effort. For example I just refactored a rather large
Java codebase. And when I change a method name for example, all I have
to do is run everything thru the compiler and it will show me all
places in other classes where this method is called, so I can go there
and chenge the method call as well.

In Python I'd have to test the whole software suite including each and
every branch in each and every if statement to be sure that I didn't
forget something. To build such a test suite would take almost as long
as it takes to build the whole software and I'd have to maintain the
test suite as well. That's just unafordable.

On the other hand, Python is the best language that currently exists
and I would like to use it on bigger projects not just for prototyping
as some suggest.

Regards,
Alexander Jerusalem