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Perl is worse! (was: Python is Wierd!)

Arthur Siegel ajs at ix.netcom.com
Sun Jul 30 14:02:55 EDT 2000 
> >> >    Actually I think it would be easier for non-programmers to
> >> >learn a language if it has strict typing.
> >>
> >> I concur. In non-programming, life is strictly typed. Allowed
> >> operations are determined by the type of the object. You can't
> >> make a phone call on a waffle-iron.
>
> Nobody expects a proof, but a just-as-carefully-framed
> counter-analogy would be a good start...
>

How about an empirical argument.

While you guys were futzing with the internals of compilers I was trying to
get
a handle on  "for" loops and  inheritance and such.

To make a long story short, gave up on Java, found Python, for looped and
inherited
myself silly.  When I was doing stupid typing tricks, unintentionally,
Python ususally found a way to tell me. Went back recently to Java. No
problem  - Java wants declared types I'll give it declared types.

Am a good sport about it usually.  But the Container stuff.  I've got to
type it on the way out, after having already typed it before it went in.
Not hard. Just annoying.

And some things simple in Python - a list of heterogenous instances that I
can append and
iterate - is a todo in Java.  Java just doesn't want to believe I might want
to do such
a silly thing. But I do.

I certainly can understand why strict typing might be a good feature for
large scale projects.

But I certainly would disagree that it makes it easier to learn programming,
or do programming.
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