It would be most convenient if the ‘any’ type could defer type checking until runtime at the script level.
For instance, if both A & B are defined as type ‘any’, a compile time error
“illegal comparison (A < B)”
occurs upon encountering a bro statement
if (A < B) do_something();
even if the actual values stored in A & B at runtime are integral types for which comparison makes sense.
If the decision could be made at runtime (which could then potentially throw an error), a number of useful generic functions could be created at the script level, rather than creating yet-another-bif. A useful yet-another-bif would be ‘typeof’ to allow varying code paths based on the type of value actually stored in ‘any’.
Any comments?
Jim