From: Paul Brannan <pbrannan@...>
Date: 2003-02-16T13:44:06+09:00
Subject: Re: von Rossum on Strong vs. Weak Typing

On Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 02:35:08PM +0900, Ryan Pavlik wrote:
> Consider that a char is just 1 byte, and while there's pretty syntax:
> 
>     char a = 'A'
> 
> there's no difference between that and
> 
>     char a = 65

Both 'A' and 65 are literals with type int.  You haven't shown that C is
typeless; only that 'A' and 65 have the same type, and that this type
can be implicitly converted to a char.

> Bringing this back on topic, C is statically typed, which gives the
> compiler the ability to do some nice optimizations, but results in
> weaker typing, too (at least by matz's definition).

Static typing does not result in weak typing.  C++, Java, and OCaml are
examples of languages that have strong static typing.  C's weak typing
is the result of being able to implicitly convert from almost any type
to almost any other type (or as matz says, the type "can be mixed and
changed very easily").

Paul