Are empty function returns type void?

One thing I don’t understand well is why some languages require a specified return type, and some don’t. My assumption is the type is inferred. Is this correct, and if yes, are empty return operations type void?

It’s actually not inferred. It depends on if the language is an expression based language or a statement based language. In a statement based language like Python, not everything is intended to return a value. However, in Ruby everything is supposed to have a value returned. Sometimes that value is nil. The other interesting thing is it looks like Python three has made a lot more of the language expression based versus previously. Take a look at this Python 3:

>>> x = print("Hello")
Hello
>>> x

versus this Python 2 code:

>>> x = print "Howdy."
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    x = print "Howdy."
            ^

in the first example, the print function is a function so that means it will return a value even though it’s not really going to do that. But in the second example, print is not really a function it’s considered a statement that means it doesn’t have a value, won’t ever return anything, and you can’t use it in and equals, and a lot of other places where you could put a value.

However, whether this is good or bad either way is up for debate. Some say that a statement based language is better because you can’t put certain things in the wrong place. Others say that makes language inconsistent.