Perl is worse!

[Erik Max Francis]

Steve Lamb wrote:

>     Nope.  1 + "foo" = 1.  Perl uses the a different syntax to put
> strings
> together.  + is only a mathematical operator, not a math and string
> operator.

In Perl you need two operators for mathematical addition (+) and string
concatination (.) because Perl is very weakly typed.  Python is strongly
typed, so this is unnecessary.  + for integers (floats, longs, etc.)
means addition, and + for strings means concatenation.  What you're
suggesting is mixing the two meanings, which is horribly ambiguous and a
terribly bad idea for a strongly typed language.

If 1 + 1 == 2 and '1' + '1' == '11' (note, not 11), then what should 1 +
'1' or '1' + 1 do?  Implicit type conversion between incompatible types
(integer and string) is a bad idea in a strongly-typed language.

That's not how it's done in Perl, but who cares?  This isn't Perl, and
in fact Python's strong typing means that looking to Perl for language
advice is a very bad idea, because the way Perl works is predicated on
its weak typing.

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