Adding static typing to Python

[Bill Tate]

"Peter Milliken" <peter.milliken at gtech.com> wrote in message 
> Personally, I have used Python for several small, personal projects and the
> odd "script" that searches text files - even here, the only perceived
> advantage is the library support, I often wonder whether I wouldn't be
> better off using my real language of choice (Ada) because of it's strong
> typing - it too has interfaces to the standard GUI tools etc. My next
> personal project will not be in Python, it is a "cute" language and allows
> some nice facilities i.e. creating a script at run-time and then running it
> can be very powerful in the correct circumstances - so I will probably use
> an Ada-Python API for these situations and get the best of both worlds :-).
> When I compile a Ada program cleanly I know that 95% of the bugs are out of
> it - before I even start testing! :-) Of course, it takes me longer to write
> up front but overall development effort (in my subjective opinion - since I
> have no metrics :-)) is that it is much lower.

Peter,
Perhaps you should also use adjectives like "toy-like," "child-like,"
"foolish," "trivial," and "not a real language" while your at it.  You
offer an opinion without supporting metrics and effectively relegate a
language to the realm of triviality.  Should I presume, that you also
lump the python developer community within the realm of "caution:
children at play?"  Perhaps you could spare us the "cute" adjectives. 
Your remarks smack of intellectual superiority.

You're right to assert there are risks and costs associated with using
a dynamically typed language.  However, are you of the opinion that
this is a community that doesn't understand what those risks and costs
are?  Perhaps this is a community that understands, better than others
I suspect, how/when to make practical tradeoffs and how to apply the
necessary tradecraft to know when to use python and when not to?

Bill