Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!gatech!mcnc!uvaarpa!haven!ni.umd.edu!uc780.umd.edu!cs450a03 From: cs450a03@uc780.umd.edu Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: RE: Dynamic typing (part 3) Message-ID: <6APR91.10374005@uc780.umd.edu> Date: 6 Apr 91 10:37:40 GMT References: <28742@dime.cs.umass.edu> <3APR91.20574161@uc780.umd.edu> <28875@dime.cs.umass.edu> <49907@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <28924@dime.cs.umass.edu> <6APR91.10183202@uc780.umd.edu> Sender: usenet@ni.umd.edu (USENET News System) Organization: The University of Maryland University College Lines: 15 Nntp-Posting-Host: uc780.umd.edu I wrote (paraphrasing Darren New) >"Dynamic typing is when the type of a variable _may_ be unknown at >compile time." An even yet more exactly stated version would be :-) "Dynamic typing is when the most efficient of the available primitive machine representation for some value(s) is chosen at run-time." An analogy to C might be choosing an "array of short" or "array of long" depending on the size of the values. (I'd say "array of double" but C has completely different semantics for "/" for that case.) Raul Rockwell