Re: What databases have taught me

Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:
> OTHO, and FWIW, the fact that Guido Van Rossum now works at Google,

Along with everyone else not working at Microsoft.

> and that MS is working on a .NET version of Python are a sure sign that
> this is not just another cryptic language. We also see more and more
> Java and C++ programmers on c.l.py.

Remember that MS has always used satellite niche languages orbiting Windows as justification for it being "open" and "multiplatform." Remember DCOM for Unix? Two of the earliest non-MS .NET language implementations were Eiffel and Fortran, I believe.

> > The second point is that while many features of type systems
> > are discussed in print, especially the much-misunderstood
> > difference between languages that support static analysis,
> > and those that do not (sometimes called "dynamically typed"),
>
> Dumb question: isn't there a third category ? IIRC, in objective-C and
> CommonLisp, it's possible to mostly relie on (what's commonly called)
> dynamic typing, but yet provide type declarations when desired ?

At least in Common Lisp, those are still nominally typed, not structurally. There's no way to declare a structural type; you can use dynamic typing and just assume it, of course. Lisp gets away with this because of its sheer power in other areas (function parameters, list handling, AST as code).  

• erk