Newbie: static typing?

[Rui Maciel]

Gary Herron wrote:

> The Pythonic way is to *enjoy* the freedom and flexibility and power of
> dynamic typing.  If you are stepping out of a static typing language
> into Python, don't step just half way.  Embrace dynamic typing.  (Like
> any freedom, it can bite you at times, but that's no reason to hobble
> Python with static typing.)


What's the Python way of dealing with objects being passed to a function 
that aren't of a certain type, have specific attributes of a specific type, 
nor support a specific interface?


Rui Maciel