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declaration of variables?

Carl Banks imbosol-1045437390 at aerojockey.com
Sun Feb 16 18:28:56 EST 2003 
Brian Quinlan wrote:
> > And I do think that declaring a variable isn't that much of a hassle,
>> atleast not of the magnitude you (and others) make it out to be. 
>> Chasing down "strange" errors is.
> 
> Declaring variables in Python would severely reduce its dynamic nature.
> The complete set of variables need might not be known at compile-time,
> so how could they be declared?

This isn't a valid counterargument, at least for function locals.  The
Python compiler does determine all the local variables used in a
function at compile time.  Declarations merely force the human
programmer to do something the compiler could do automatically, all
for the sake of catching an occasional typo.


> As an example, imagine that I write a RPC
> client that must be able to receive proxies to object instances. How
> would I know what variables that object has at compile-time?

Those are attributes, not variables.  I don't believe the OP was
suggesting that we be able to declare attributes; and if he were, we
could tell him that Python optionally allows that with __slots__.


> I also
> might want to do something wacky like write a module that exposes
> environment variables as globals (like PHP does). How would I know what
> variables I need a compile-time?

Well, globals are attributes of a module, but they kind of behave like
variables when in the module's scope.  I don't know if the OP was
suggesting declarations in the global scope, or just the local scope,
but global declarations would certainly interfere with Python's
dynamic nature.


-- 
CARL BANKS
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