Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail
From: Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: Considering migrating to Python from Visual Basic 6 for engineering applications
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 21:40:11 -0500
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On Sun, 21 Feb 2016 12:19:06 -0600, Tim Chase
<python.list@tim.thechases.com> declaimed the following:

>
>In both Fortran & BASIC, you specify that information somewhere as
>well.  However, it sounds like you define those at the
>variable-definition level (it's been over a decade since I done any
>BASIC and far longer since I've even touched any Fortran, so forgive
>me if I'm a tad rusty) instead of where its read from the file.
>

	In K&K BASIC, the neophyte level (remember, variable names were limited
to [A-Z][null|0-9]) is that 'A' is a single-precision float, 'A$' is a
character string, and eventually there were additional punctuation codes
for double-precision and integer types.

	Visual BASIC took the DEF statement (originally only used to declare
array bound) and extended it to declare data types for the subsequent
variable names.

	FORTRAN traditionally used I-N ("IndiaN") to indicate an integer, all
other variable names were single precision float -- unless explicitly
declared as some other type (and there were no character string type back
then -- it was an array of bytes).

	However, in BOTH BASIC, FORTRAN, C/C++, Pascal, Ada, etc., the type of
the data being read is known by the compiler based upon the (implicit or
explicit) type declaration of the receiving variable. Python, REXX, other
"scripting" languages, do not use predefined types for variable names -- a
given name can receive an object of any type. This means I/O has to specify
the type needed to parse the string representation. Note that a real REXX
implementation determines the difference between numeric and string at time
of usage (most REXX implementations do have internal float/integer forms,
but it is perfectly valid for the implementation to keep things in string
form and do a behind-the-scenes parse when arithmetic is done, then convert
the result back to string).

-=-=-=-=-
/* junk */
A = "1"
B = 2
say A + B
say A || B
-=-=-=-=-
C:\Users\Wulfraed\Documents>rexx junk.rx
3
12

C:\Users\Wulfraed\Documents>

	The first "say" treats them as integers, and returns the sum. The
second say is using string concatenation. Yet in the code, A is a string
and B is an integer.

	And you don't want to see REXX's equivalent of multi-field console
input... {Hint: it starts with PARSE PULL -- PULL being the equivalent of
Python's input()/raw_input() [P3 vs P2]}
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/