On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:42 AM, Steven D'Aprano
This makes it necessary to use string representation for names that are not yet bound, which affects almost every class definition.
Almost every class? Really? I find that implausible. Still, I can see it affecting *many* class definitions, so let's not quibble.
I would say this affects a "rare class here and there." Almost all typing will be with things defined in the `typing` module (or built-ins). I guess once in a while we'll see e.g. `Sequence[CustomThing]`, but it will be uncommon for that typing involving `CutomThing` to be within CustomThing itself (well, unless you use much more recursion than Python encourages).
-1 on complicating the simple Python model that expressions are evaluated when they are reached.
I think there is a decent argument for a more general concept of macros, or symbols, or simpler delayed evaluation than lambda for Python in general. I see places where this would be very nice for Pandas, for example, and for Dask (I work with the developers of both of those projects). In such a hypothetical future world we might come to allow, e.g. `Sequence[#CustomThing]` where some general lazy facility or indirection is indicated by the '#' (just a placeholder for this comment, not a proposal). But if that comes about, it should be available everywhere, not only in annotations. -- Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting advocates of freedom in prisons. Intellectual property is to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.