Python less error-prone than Java

[Christoph Zwerschke]

You will often hear that for reasons of fault minimization, you should 
use a programming language with strict typing:
http://turing.une.edu.au/~comp284/Lectures/Lecture_18/lecture/node1.html

I just came across a funny example in which the opposite is the case.

The following is a binary search algorithm in Java. It searches a value 
in an ordered array a of ints:

public static int binarySearch(int[] a, int key) {
     int low = 0;
     int high = a.length - 1;
     while (low <= high) {
         int mid = (low + high) / 2;
         int midVal = a[mid];
         if (midVal < key)
             low = mid + 1;
         else if (midVal > key)
             high = mid - 1;
         else
             return mid; // key found
     }
     return -(low + 1);  // key not found.
}

Now the same thing, directly converted to Python:

def binarySearch(a, key):
     low = 0
     high = len(a) - 1
     while low <= high:
         mid = (low + high) / 2
         midVal = a[mid]
         if midVal < key:
             low = mid + 1
         elif midVal > key:
             high = mid - 1;
         else:
             return mid # key found
     return -(low + 1) # key not found.

What's better about the Python version? First, it will operate on *any* 
sorted array, no matter which type the values have.

But second, there is a hidden error in the Java version that the Python 
version does not have.

See the following web page if you dont find it ;-)
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html

-- Christoph