On Jul 5, 3:24 pm, Donn Cave <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > Paul Boddie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > However, it's interesting to consider the work that sometimes needs to > > go in to specify data structures in some languages - thinking of ML > > and friends, as opposed to Java and friends. The campaign for optional > > static typing in Python rapidly became bogged down in this matter, > > fearing that any resulting specification for type information might > > not be the right combination of flexible and powerful to fit in with > > the rest of the language, and that's how we really ended up with PEP > > 3107: make the semantics vague and pretend it has nothing to do with > > types, thus avoiding the issue completely. > > I missed the campaign for optional static typing, must have been > waged in the developer list. Unless it was not much more than > some on-line musings from GvR a year or two ago. I don't see > how it could ever get anywhere without offending a lot of the > Python crowd, however well designed, so I can see why someone > might try to sneak it past by pretending it has nothing to do > with types. But he didn't -- look at the examples, I think he > rather overstates the potential for static typing applications.
The key point is that this is left to 3rd party libraries; the language won't know anything more about static typing than it does now. FWIW, there is already a typechecking module [1] providing a syntax as friendly as it gets without function annotations. If the number of its downloads from the Cheeshop is any indication of static typing's popularity among Pythonistas, I doubt that PEP 3107 will give significant momentum to any non-standard module anytime soon. George [1] http://oakwinter.com/code/typecheck/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
