gradual typing for Python (slides)

[jonathandavid]

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/com ... df_slides/


Looks like the trend is to evolve Python towards static typing. Meanwhile, C# is growing constructs that allow for dynamic typing. Will both languages converge in the not so distant future, with the only main difference being "braces vs indentation"? I wouldn't be surprised...

EDIT: of course I don't mean that the "official" line of Python will add static typing any time soon to the language, but rather that each day more Python developers are growing aware that a little bit of static typing is not so bad after all, just as C# developers realize that a static type system gets in the way too often. This will increase the popularity of static typing tools for Python, but also open the doors to new languages that offer both paradigms, like Cobra. Good insight, Chuck!

[Charles]

I saw this presentation in person at the JVM Languages Summit at Sun last Sep. I was really surprised the author didn't at least mention the other languages that include both static and dynamic typing such as Objective-C, which has been around for quite awhile.

In any case, I wouldn't hold your breath regarding getting this in Python. A limited form of this goes all the way back to the Pyrex project, but these things are always external to Guido, the author of Python. If he wanted static types, I think he would have added them along time ago. (I see you address this in your EDIT, but for other readers, I thought I would mention it.)