Are the critiques in "All the things I hate about Python" valid?

[Antoon Pardon]

On 20-02-18 14:58, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 12:53 AM, Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon at vub.be> wrote:
>> In C++ I can do something like:
>>
>>   SomeClass MyVar;
>>
>> And after that the kind of possible assignments to MyVar are constraint. It
>> makes the runtime throw an error when somewhere the program tries to assign
>> something to MyVar that isn't allowed by SomeClass.
>>
>> You can't put such constraints on names in Python.
>>
>> In C++ I can do some like:
>>     Some_Class: MyVar;
>>
>> And after that, It will be impossible to assign a value to MyVar that
>> doesn't meet the
>> constraints imposed by the constructor/copy operator. You have put
>> somekind of
>> contract on the name MyVar, that limits the kind of things assignable to
>> it. You
>> can't put such constraints on a name in Python.
> Okay. Now create a constraint on a name in C++ such that it can only
> accept integers representing A.D. years which, on the Gregorian
> calendar, are leap years. (Using a dedicated integer-like type is
> permitted.) It must accept all multiples of four, except those which
> are multiples of one hundred, unless they're also multiples of four
> hundred.
>
> That's what Steve asked for. Can you do it? Or is the C++ type system
> not flexible enough for that?

Steve had multiple contributions in this thread. I didn't react to the
one where he asked for that.

I reacted to his assertion that dynamic languages excell at [run time
checks] as if static languages are somehow limited at run time checks.

writing a Digit Class in a dynamic language that checks whether the number
you are about to assign is a digit, doesn't strike me as that much different
from just writing a function that does the same kind of checking.

Plus, in a statically typed language you can put constraints on the variables
that will ensure the compilor will implicitly call the needed functions to
check (because they are part of the constructor/copy operator) which you
can't do in a dynamically typed language. So IMO the statically typed 
languages are at the advantage here.
-- 
Antoon.