[Python-Dev] Type hints -- a mediocre programmer's reaction

[R. David Murray]

I wrote a longer response and then realized it didn't really add much to
the discussion.  So let me be short: type annotations do *not* appeal to
me, and I am not looking forward to the cognitive overhead of dealing
with them.  Perhaps I will eventually grow to like them if the tools
that use them really add value.  You'll have to sell me on it, though.

On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 12:35:33 -0700, <lukasz at langa.pl> wrote:
> Stub files have many downsides, too, unfortunately:
> - we don’t *want* to have them, but we *need* to have them (C extensions, third-party modules, Python 2, …)
> - they bring cognitive overhead of having to switch between two files
> - they require the author to repeat himself quite a lot
> - they might go out of date much easier than annotations in the function signature

The whole point of type hints is for the linters/IDEs, so IMO it is
perfectly reasonable to put the burden of making them useful onto the
linters/IDEs.  The UI for it can unify the two files into a single
view...I know because way back in the dark ages I wrote a small
editor-based IDE that did something very analogous on an IBM Mainframe,
and it worked really well as a development environment.

--David