Last semester, I took a class in Python. Coming from a C++/C# background, many things were new to me. I liked not having to use curly braces. I also liked not having to declare the type of my variables.
A few things caught me off guard, however. I found it strange that Python did not allow me to declare my class variables as private. I was also disappointed that I couldn't explicitly define an interface.
What I initially considered limitations of the language, I eventually regarded as liberating. I felt empowered to be a responsible programmer without being babysat by the compiler. I knew what types I was using, and I knew which variables I intended to be private. When I wanted to use an interface, I simply used the same method signature in several different classes. Indeed, my productivity was increased significantly as a result of this flexibility.
At the end of the class we had a chance to build a final project. In just three weeks, I was able to build a command-line batch photo editor. Working on it was a joy, and the resulting code was very clean and terse.
My only frustration that did not have a satisfactory conclusion was the problem of deployment. Either the end user needs to have Python installed on his system, or you must somehow package up the interpreter with the application. Neither solution is ideal.
Overall, I concluded that in many cases, static typing is an unnecessary burden to programmers. Dynamic typing is not without its problems, but Python will definitely hold a prominent place in my quiver from now on.
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