[Python-Dev] Type hints -- a mediocre programmer's reaction (original) (raw)

Carol Willing willingc at willingconsulting.com
Tue Apr 21 19:03:32 CEST 2015

On 4/21/15 9:17 AM, R. David Murray wrote:

Please be respectful rather than inflammatory. Thank you David. If you read what I wrote, I did not say that I was going to stop contributing, I specifically talked about that gut reaction being both emotional and illogical. That doesn't make the reaction any less real, and the fact that such reactions exist is a data point you should consider in conducting your PR campaign for this issue. (I don't mean that last as a negative: this issue requires an honest PR campaign.) As David stated, gut reactions are real. These reactions have the potential, if listened to and respected, to lead toward an optimal (not ideal) solution.

Likely, the implementation of optional static type checking will evolve from reasoned, respectful debate of the issues not inflammatory quotes. Quite frankly, belittling someone's understanding or knowledge does not serve the PEP or technical issues at hand.

I like the option of static type checking for critical high availability and high reliability applications (i.e. air traffic control, financial transactions). I'm less interested in static type checking of inputs when prototyping or developing less critical applications.

There have been good technical points made by many on this thread especially given the different use cases. These use cases, and likely a few more, are important to an honest, continued technical refinement of the PEP.

Two areas of clarification would be helpful for me:

  1. Optional: What does this really mean in practice? Am I opting in to static type checking and type hints? Or must I opt out of type hints? Having to opt out would probably put more burden on the educational use cases than opting in would for a large corporate project.

  2. Clearly, great thought has been put into this PEP. If anyone has a good analysis of the potential impact on Python 3 adoption, please do pass along. I would be interested in reading the information.

Warmly, Carol P.S. I do member a time when tools to easily check for memory leaks in C were new and magical. Looking at the Coverity scans, I'm glad that the old magic is reaping real benefits.

-- Carol Willing Developer | Willing Consulting https://willingconsulting.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20150421/7316b9e6/attachment-0001.html>

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