declaration of variables?

[Paul Rubin]

Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> writes:
>         For the language's target environment (at least originally;
> Python is changing from a common snake into a dragon in terms of
> usage <G>), not having to declare variables is a positive
> feature... a library routine could return an error code (numeric) or
> error message (string) and the user doesn't have to know which in
> advance.

That's not so hot for the library: the caller then has to figure out
whether the thing that came back is an error code.  Better for the library
to raise an exception on an error condition.  That's why exceptions
were invented after all.