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in reply to Re: Perl 6: Static/Dynamic Strong/Weak Type Systems
in thread Perl 6: Static/Dynamic Strong/Weak Type Systems

I realize now that there is clearly no standard definition of "strongly typed".

For me it related to type casting pointers.

In "Weakly Typed" C/C++...

Foo f; Foo *pf = &f; Bar *pb = (Bar*) pf; Bar& b = *pf;

Here, f points to a piece of memory it will treat as if it was in the structure of a Foo. b points to *the same* piece of memory and instead it will treat as if it was in the structure of a Bar. Foo and Bar may have totally unrelated structures. This is what I was thinking of in terms of weak typing.

I thought you couldn't do that in Perl - hence I called in strongly typed.

(It looks like you might be able to something similiar with the pack/unpack magic mentioned above - although it is certainly not a common practice.)

-Andrew.