- In statically-typed languages, variables are containers, which allow only objects of a certain type to be contained within.
- In dynamically-typed languages, variables are more like labels which can be attached to different objects, which can be of different types.
Each of these approaches have its merits, which is obvious when you look at all the lengths languages of one type go to to emulate the features of the other: interfaces and generics in statically-typed languages, or type hints and statical checkers in dynamic ones. But I have yet to see a language that would offer both types of variables...
As a Python developer, I can easily imagine a PEP that would introduce some kind of "container variables" that would accept only properly typed objects and throw a syntax error if a violation occurs at compile time. But I'm not holding my breath, with a language which ironically doesn't even have an implementation for constants.
- In statically-typed languages, variables are containers, which allow only objects of a certain type to be contained within.
- In dynamically-typed languages, variables are more like labels which can be attached to different objects, which can be of different types.
Each of these approaches have its merits, which is obvious when you look at all the lengths languages of one type go to to emulate the features of the other: interfaces and generics in statically-typed languages, or type hints and statical checkers in dynamic ones. But I have yet to see a language that would offer both types of variables...
As a Python developer, I can easily imagine a PEP that would introduce some kind of "container variables" that would accept only properly typed objects and throw a syntax error if a violation occurs at compile time. But I'm not holding my breath, with a language which ironically doesn't even have an implementation for constants.