Hey Shantanu,

Thanks for bringing this up!

Some history which might be relevant: we actually started PEP 646 using `Concatenate` for our concatenation purposes too, and only realised the unpacking approach using the star operator might be shorter/more intuitive when someone else (Lucio) suggested it. That is, the reason we're not using `Concatenate` isn't because of how it behaves, but more because of its aesthetics.

I'm assuming f2 won't preserve keyword arguments like ParamSpec does and that a function that takes keyword-only arguments would be invalid if matched against a TypeVarTuple. But some language in the PEP mentioning that would be good.

That's right - `TypeVarTuple` currently doesn't deal with keyword arguments. I'll clarify this in the current draft of the PEP.

 As for whether the unpacking approach could replace `Concatenate` - my current feeling is that it shouldn't, because of the semantics of how unpacking normally works: a single star is reserved for unpacking to positional arguments, while a double star is needed for keyword arguments. As I understand it, `Concatenate` can handle both positional and keyword arguments, whereas `*P`, suggests to me unpacking of a sequence of positional arguments. To put it another way: a TypeVarTuple behaves like a tuple, whereas a ParamSpec behaves like a dict.

Mark, what do you think?

On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 at 03:15, Shantanu Jain <hauntsaninja@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello all,

There's some overlap between PEP 612 and PEP 646 and I thought it would be good to start a discussion. Sorry if this has already been covered, just trying to catch up! :-)

The current draft of PEP 646 includes this example:

```
Ts = TypeVarTuple('Ts')

def f(func: Callable[[int, *Ts], Any]) -> Tuple[*Ts]: ...

def foo(int, str, float): ...
def bar(str, int, float): ...

f(foo)  # Valid; inferred type is Tuple[str, float]
f(bar)  # Not valid
```

This is similar to the Concatenate operator PEP 612 introduces. Compare:

```
P = ParamSpec('P')

def f1(func: Callable[Concatenate[int, P], Any]) -> Callable[P, Any]: ...

Ts = TypeVarTuple('Ts')

def f2(func: Callable[[int, *Ts], Any]) -> Callable[[*Ts], Any]: ...
```

Question 1: Do f1 and f2 differ?

I'm assuming f2 won't preserve keyword arguments like ParamSpec does and that a function that takes keyword-only arguments would be invalid if matched against a TypeVarTuple. But some language in the PEP mentioning that would be good.

Question 2: Should ParamSpec support splatting? Should Concatenate exist at all?

That is, in addition to (or instead of) `Callable[Concatenate[int, P], Any]` we spell it `Callable[[int, *P], Any]`. There shouldn't be any parsing / runtime concerns for ParamSpec splatting, since it would just be normal sequence unpacking. If Concatenate is destined to be vestigial, it's not too late to get rid of it! :-)

If Concatenate should exist, should `Concatenate[x, Ts]` generally be a synonym for `[x, *Ts]`? 
Note that Concatenate can't serve as a replacement for PEP 646's proposed Unpack, since you can't spell `def f(*args: Unpack[Ts])` and stuff like `[int, *Ts, float]` becomes awkward. (But as far as I can tell, Unpack / splatting could do everything Concatenate would).

Thanks,
Shantanu
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