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by tomc1985 2049 days ago
Funny, that's one of the things that drives me nuts about Python. It knows each types, it knows function to convert to each type, but... it doesn't do the conversions! So frustrating! Why do I have to care about types in these dynamically typed languages??

Also, is sprintf-style string formatting the best example here? I think that feature is type strict in a lot of languages, after all you are declaring the types you want in the formatting string. I imagine most implementations of % in dynamic languages pass to sprintf internally?
3 comments
imtringued 2049 days ago
>It knows each types, it knows function to convert to each type, but... it doesn't do the conversions! So frustrating!

It surprises me that you are incapable of thinking one step ahead. Implicit type conversions undermine the type system and make your language completely unpredictable. Pretty much everyone regrets this feature in C++ and it is still a huge source of bugs because you have to opt out of it.

You want things to fail with a loud bang instead of continuing and destroying things along the way.

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tomc1985 2049 days ago
> It surprises me that you are incapable of thinking one step ahead.

Seriously, what is this? You don't know me. Lay the fuck off.

My thoughts on the matter are either that a language should be strongly typed, with type declarations and enforcement at the compiler level, or dynamically typed in such a way that I shouldn't have to worry about types except for specific circumstances. Dynamically typed languages should know their coercion capabilities and perform them losslessly when needed. In reality what ends up happening is that some type coercions are automatic and some aren't, and if you're a polyglot then this is yet another one of those stupid arbitrary details you have to memorize for each language you work with. (I really would like less of those, there are too many different languages for doing the same thing)

One of the benefits of dynamic languages is that they handle type stuff for you. Which I interpret as, "cool, I don't have to worry about types!"

Yeah I know python is all about being obnoxiously explicit, and that is one of the things that I really do not like about that language. Now that I think about it maybe Python should have been strongly typed, its "no implicit behavior" opinion works much better under such a regime

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marmaduke 2049 days ago
Some of those things in Python reflect its history as a better language between Bash and C, and the gotchas of those languages became verboten in Python.

Elsewhere in eg NumPy conversions between number types are automatic as long as they don’t lose information.

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stevesimmons 2049 days ago
Python is biased towards "explicit is better than implicit". It would rather fail with a TypeError than silently coerce types and risk masking logic/type errors.

> Why do I have to care about types in these dynamically typed languages?

Because Python is strongly typed, and types determined behaviour.

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