<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">It would be most convenient if the &#39;any&#39; type could defer type checking until runtime at the script level.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">For instance, if both A &amp; B are defined as type &#39;any&#39;, a compile time error</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">&quot;illegal comparison (A &lt; B)&quot;</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">occurs upon encountering a bro statement</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">if (A &lt; B) do_something();</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">even if the actual values stored in A &amp; B at runtime are integral types for which comparison makes sense.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">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 &#39;typeof&#39; to allow varying code paths based on the type of value actually stored in &#39;any&#39;.<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Any comments?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Jim</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div></div>