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Adding static typing to Python

Jeff Shannon jeff at ccvcorp.com
Wed Feb 20 13:10:00 EST 2002 
Alexander Jerusalem wrote:

> Jeff Shannon <jeff at ccvcorp.com> wrote in message news:<3C72AB39.28618CC3 at ccvcorp.com>...
>
> > This is exactly what Python does, except that it does it at runtime
> > instead of compile time; and really, it is *not* any slower to test this
> > than it is to try a couple of compile cycles.
>
> From my experience I can say it is much slower but maybe one has to
> get used to this style of programming.

Just yesterday, I was refactoring a Python COM object I'm working on.  Within the space of
five minutes, I found an error I'd made, found that my correction was incomplete, and found
that *that* correction was incomplete too.  This is including a space of about a minute each
time to restart the COM client that was using my object (It has to be restarted in order to
have it release the reference, or I don't see my changes).  Had I been using a compiled
language, then each of these errors would've require a separate full compile, and in at
least one case would've still required testing -- the compiler wouldn't have found the
error.  I doubt that I could've done that within five minutes.  And the exception tracebacks
I got pointed me to exactly where the problem was, each time.  Quick, easy, painless.
>shrug<  YMMV, of course, but I'm happy with the Python way.

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International
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