On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:07:10 -0800, bearophileHUGS wrote: > Paddy: >> Not really, it seems to me to be going the exact opposite way with >> languages with automatic type conversions being seen as not suited for >> larger programs. > > In Java you can add the number 1 to a string, and have it automatically > converted to string before the string join... What do you think of that > feature?
You mean special-casing the int 1 so that this works? # Faked! >>> x = "spam spam spam" >>> x = x + 1 >>> x 'spam spam spam1' but not this? >>> x = "spam spam spam" >>> x = x + 2 TypeError: automatic conversion between strings and ints only works for the int 1 How bizarre. The problem with automatic conversions between strings and integers is that it isn't clear what the user wants when they do something like this: >>> x = '1' + 1 Should x be the string '11' or the int 2? Please justify your answer. On the other hand, if the language includes separate operators for addition and concatenation (say, + and &) then that sort of auto- conversion is no longer ambiguous: >>> '2' + 3 5 >>> '2' & 3 '23' -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list