Christopher Barker writes:
Also: Static type checking is optional in Python. There are those of us that are not convinced that static type checking is or should be a Python best practice.
Why would you be? Nobody (sane senior core) is advocating annotations as a Python-wide best practice. Whether annotations should be used or not is a project question. There are plenty of Python applications where it would be insane to use annotations. But there are others where it's a good idea, even a best practice.
An official type checker would be an endorsement not just of that particular approach to type checking, but also the concept itself — I don’t think the community is ready for that.
I wish you'd stop fighting this battle. It's over. The type annotations concept as a gradual and optional approach to type checking is a done deal -- that check has been written, deposited, *endorsed*, returned to writer, and locked away for the inevitable tax audit by now. If there are specific aspects of the annotations API that interfere with existing practice or changes to the compiler or interpreter that seem to require a type annotation is some context, that's another matter. I'm not saying that I think that those should always be resolved in favor of alternatives to the type checking application -- I don't. But it's certainly a valid issue and the alternatives have every right to advocate for themselves. Steve