Python vs .Net

[Brian Quinlan]

> - VB.NET (as well as C##) are/can be very strongly statically typed -
> even more so than VB6.  I'm still trying to determine if I like a
> strongly _dynamically_ typed language like Python.  I'm having a hard
> time understanding why it's not better to know at compile time that
> ['foo' + 5] is an exception.  

There is a lot of literature explaining the advantages/disadvantages of
static typing. The biggest advantage, IMHO, is that dynamic typing gives
you more flexibility.

> If I have to wait until runtime, then I
> would think that I need to be writing LOTS more error checking code at
> all my function entry points, whereas with strong static typing, I can
> catch all this at compile time. 

Type information is usually not sufficient to validate arguments. And
functions don't validate their arguments in any case. So you often have
to do runtime debugging. Python has two things going for it here: very
rich exceptions and a good unit testing framework.

Cheers,
Brian