Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Andreas Rossberg]

prunesquallor at comcast.net wrote:
> "Marshall Spight" <mspight at dnai.com> writes:
> 
>>It would be really interesting to see a small but useful example
>>of a program that will not pass a statically typed language.
>>It seems to me that how easy it is to generate such programs
>>will be an interesting metric.
> 
> Would this count?
> 
> (defun noisy-apply (f arglist)
>   (format t "I am now about to apply ~s to ~s" f arglist)
>   (apply f arglist))

Moscow ML version 2.00 (June 2000)
Enter `quit();' to quit.
- fun noisyApply f x =
   (print "I am about to apply "; printVal f;
    print " to "; printVal x; print "\n";
    f x);
 > val ('a, 'b) noisyApply = fn : ('a -> 'b) -> 'a -> 'b
- noisyApply Math.sin Math.pi;
I am about to apply fn to 3.14159265359
 > val it = 1.22460635382E~16 : real


In this example, printVal requires some runtime type information. But 
that does in no way preclude static type checking.

-- 
Andreas Rossberg, rossberg at ps.uni-sb.de

"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac Man affected us
  as kids, we would all be running around in darkened rooms, munching
  magic pills, and listening to repetitive electronic music."
  - Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc.