python philosophical question - strong vs duck typing

[Sean Wolfe]

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Sean Wolfe <ether.joe at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hello everybody, I'm a happy pythonista newly subscribed to the group.
>
> Welcome!

Thanks! and thanks to all, hjaha.

>
>> I have a theoretical / philosophical question regarding strong vs duck
>> typing in Python. Let's say we wanted to type strongly in Python
>
> There may be an unstated assumption there, and your wording confuses me.
>

yep, probably. I am throwing around terminology a bit. Here's another
attempt -->

If I am willing to create some python code, when needed, where when I
create a variable, let's say an integer, that it will be for all time
an integer, and also that a method that returns say a Sprite custom
object, and will for all time return only a Sprite object ... , does
this get me significantly closer to being able to compile to C++?

I am just thinking in my brain about the differences between cpp and
python, and if there is a way to compromise a bit on the python-ness
to get closer to cpp, but still be able to keep a lot of the goodness,
then put in a translator or converter to cpp and gain performance by
using cpp code. Sounds like Rpython, cython, shedskin are doing a lot
or all of this, so lots to study up on.

>
> “Strongly-typed” is one end of a spectrum whose opposite end is
> “weakly-typed”. Weakly-typed objects are in languages like e.g. PHP,
> where an integer object can be added to a string object.

Ah ok, I didn't realize this distinction. Now I grok it a bit better.

> Python does not have variables in the sense of languages like C; rather,
> Python has references bound to objects. A reference (e.g. a name, or a
> list index, etc.) never has a type. An object always has a type.

yeah I've been learning a lot about this ... at times I have to
're-create' a variable to avoid modifying the original value as well.
For example, when I pass a 'screen' object in my game, at times I have
to duplicate the screen in the new method, then work on the duplicate,
otherwise I will be using the original screen by reference.

> You may be thinking of “static typing” (identifiers have types, and
> won't allow themselves to refer to an object of a different type),
> versus “dynamic typing” (identifiers are ignorant of types – this is
> what you have in Python).

Yep I think so.

Thanks for the info all!