Python Newbie

[Roy Smith]

In article <da0ec7a1-decd-4cfb-9a0b-5722879f5864 at googlegroups.com>,
 piterrr.dolinski at gmail.com wrote:

> Yes I did see that it is possible to redefine the type of a variable. But I 
> don't think I would ever do this intentionally

One does not need language features to protect themselves against things 
they do intentionally.  They need language features to protect 
themselves against things they do by accident.  Different languages 
protect you from different things.

Compare, for example, C++ and Python.

C++ protects you against accidentally passing an int where you were 
supposed to pass a float.  Well, no, with automatic type promotion, 
that's a bad example.  But it does prevent you from passing an IntThing 
where you were supposed to pass a FloatThing (assuming IntThing is not a 
subclass of FloatThing, and a few other details).

But, Python protects you from dereferencing a null pointer, or 
double-freeing a pointer.  There's just no way to even write those 
concepts in Python.

You pays your money and you takes your chances.  Pick which type of 
protection you feel is more important and use the language which gives 
you that.

> need to be really careful with Python.

You need to be really careful with all programming languages.  You just 
need to be careful about different things.