"no variable or argument declarations are necessary."

[Diez B. Roggisch]

> Sure, But allow me this silly analogy.
> 
> Going out on a full test-drive will also reveal your tires are flat.
> So if you one has to be dropped, a full test drive or a tire check
> it would certainly be the tired check. But IMO the tire check
> is still usefull.

But you could write it as test - including not only a look (which 
resembles the limited capabilities of typechecking), but testing the air 
pressure, looking at the tyre type and see that it won't match the rainy 
conditions...

> Hey, I'm all for testing. I never suggested testing should be dropped
> for declarations

The testing is IMHO more valuable than typechecking. The latter one 
actually _limits_ me. See e.g. the java IO-Api for a very bloated way of 
what comes very naturally with python. Duck-typing at it's best. The 
only reason I see typechecking is good for is optimization. But that is 
not the problem with JAVA/.NET anyway. And could possibly be done with 
psyco.

> I wonder how experienced are these programmers? I know I had this
> feeling when I started at the univeristy, but before I left I
> already wrote my programs in rather small pieces that were tested
> before moving on.

<snip>

> Again I do have to wonder about how experienced these programmers are.

Well - surely they aren't. But that is beyond your control - you can't 
just stomp into a company and declare your own superiority and force 
others your way. I was astonished to  hear that even MS just recently 
adopted test-driven development for their upcoming windows vista. And 
they are commonly seen as sort of whiz-kid hiring hi-class company, 
certified CMM Levelo 6 and so on....

The discussion is somewhat moot - typechecking is not nonsense. But 
matter of factly, _no_ programm runs without testing. And developing a 
good testing culture is cruicial. Where OTH a lot of large and 
successful projects exist (namely the python ones, amongst others..) 
that show that testing alone without typechecking seems to be good enough.

Diez