[ruby-talk:03443] Re: Static Typing( Was: Waffling between Python and Ruby)

Quoth "Thaddeus L. Olczyk":

> Make Ruby a language with both static and dynamic type.

Yes. This is highly unlikely to ever happen with Python, or Smalltalk, and
would make Ruby even more unique.
Ruby's syntax looks already ripe for adding static typing, as an option.

Imagine if Ruby could be written in Ruby.  For more on that, see Squeak
Smalltalk, in which 99% of the smalltalk VM is written in Smalltalk.  Like a
Python/Eiffel hybrid, Ruby would generate the C files which are required to
generate the ruby executable, the build/link process would be controlled in
a Ruby script, and a Script can use Ruby modules, or "crystalized" ruby
modules, without caring whether the modules are scripts or compiled.

I just thought of another cool thing about the name Ruby: Rubies can be used
to make Lasers. Right?

The other alternative I have thought of is to start with a statically typed
OOP language that has a single root object class (I'm thinking of a
delphi/Pascal variant) and adding a scripting/dynamically typed execution
mode.  The type declarations of Pascal become optional (actually, mostly
ignored), and the syntax otherwise stays Pascal.

I think I would call my new hybrid Blaise.

Warren Postma