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It depends on what definition of "type system" you're using. Colloquially many programmers use it to refer to any system that checks whether objects have specif

It depends on what definition of "type system" you're using. Colloquially many programmers use it to refer to any system that checks whether objects have specific shapes. Academics, on the other hand, have a very specific definition of a type system that excludes dynamic detect languages. From TAPL (one of the authoritative works on the subject): > A type system is a tractable syntactic method for proving the absence of certain program behaviors by classifying phrases according to the kinds of values they compute. And later on: > A type system can be regarded as calculating a kind of static approximation to the runtime behaviors of the terms in a program. ... Terms like "dynamically typed" are arguably misnomers and should probably be replaced by "dynamically checked," but the usage is standard. In other words, you're both correct in your definitions depending on who you're talking to, but if we're going to get pedantic (which you seem to be) OP is slightly more correct. Personally, it feels like dynamically typed language advocates have been getting more and more vocal about their language of choice being "typed" as static typing has grown in popularity in recent years. This seems like misdirected energy—static typing advocates know what they're advocating for and know that dynamically typed languages don't fill their need. You're not accomplishing much by trying to force them to use inclusive language. Rather than trying to push Python as a typed language it seems like it would be more effective to show why dynamic checks have value.

kstrauser 2y ago
Here's a Stack Overflow question about it from 15 years ago: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2025353/is-python-a-weakly-typed-language-as-variables-can-switch-types https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2025353/is-python-a-weak... It was an old discussion before then, even. It has nothing to do with advocacy and it's certainly not recent. It's about accuracy so that people stop hearing and then repeating the same incorrect ideas. There's no common definition of types by which Python is untyped, as though it doesn't have types at all when in fact every Python object has a type.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > There's no common definition of types by which Python is untyped You mean besides the one used by every programming languages researcher and hobbyist? Sure, you can define "common" to exclude them, but I would give at least some credence to the definitions put forward by the teams of people who invent type theory. As I've said here and elsewhere, I have no problem with people casually using "dynamically typed" as a term—I do so as well. But there's no cause to correct someone for using the more correct terminology. If hearing it makes you feel defensive of python, that implies that you perceive "untyped" as a pejorative that needs defending against. In that case, your efforts would be better spent correcting the evolving consensus that (statically) typed is better than they would be spent trying to shout people down for using the academic definitions of typed and untyped.

kstrauser 2y ago

Here's a Stack Overflow question about it from 15 years ago: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2025353/is-python-a-weakly-typed-language-as-variables-can-switch-types https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2025353/is-python-a-weak... It was an old discussion before then, even. It has nothing to do with advocacy and it's certainly not recent. It's about accuracy so that people stop hearing and then repeating the same incorrect ideas. There's no common definition of types by which Python is untyped, as though it doesn't have types at all when in fact every Python object has a type.

lolinder 2y ago
> There's no common definition of types by which Python is untyped You mean besides the one used by every programming languages researcher and hobbyist? Sure, you can define "common" to exclude them, but I would give at least some credence to the definitions put forward by the teams of people who invent type theory. As I've said here and elsewhere, I have no problem with people casually using "dynamically typed" as a term—I do so as well. But there's no cause to correct someone for using the more correct terminology. If hearing it makes you feel defensive of python, that implies that you perceive "untyped" as a pejorative that needs defending against. In that case, your efforts would be better spent correcting the evolving consensus that (statically) typed is better than they would be spent trying to shout people down for using the academic definitions of typed and untyped.