On 8 Jan 2022 at 00:59:38, jack.jansen@cwi.nl wrote:
I posted this suggestion earlier in the callable type syntax discussion, at which point it was completely ignored. Possibly because it’s a really stupid idea, but let me post it again on the off chance that it isn’t a stupid idea but was overlooked. 

If I can make a wild suggestion: why not create a little language for type specifications?

Indeed. 

Using the same syntax may have some benefits for language implementors (e.g. less complex grammar to implement), but I don’t really see these benefits for language users.

As an example, and I don’t know if this has been discussed before, I think a pretty neat syntax construct for optional argument would be (like, for instance, in Kotlin):

def f(x: int? = None): ...

Instead of:

def f(x: Optional[int] = None): …

or

def f(x: int | None = None): …

One could even argue that the “= None” part would be redundant (def f(x: int?): ...)  and could be made optional. But that would open another can of worms.

  S.

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