Learn Programming in Python with Cody Jackson

Dynamic versus static

Python is a dynamic typed language. Many other languages are static typed, such as C/C++ and Java. A static typed language requires the programmer to explicitly tell the computer what type of "thing" each data construct is.

For example, if you were writing a C inventory program and one of the variables was cost, you would have to declare cost as a float type, which tells the C compiler that the only data that can be used for that variable must be a floating point number, that is, a number with a decimal point, such as 3.14. If any other data type was assigned to that variable, like an integer or a text string, the compiler would give an error when trying to compile the program. (A programming variable is similar to ...