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Dynamic Type Binding

• Specified through an assignment statement (APL, Smalltalk, etc.)

      LIST <- 2 4 6 8
      LIST <- 17.3
  

• Advantage: flexibility (generic program units)

• Disadvantages:
  • Type error detection by the compiler is difficult
  • High cost (dynamic type checking and interpretation) or low safety

• Type Inferencing (ML, Miranda, and Haskell)
  • Rather than by assignment statement, types are determined from the context of the reference