[Python-Dev] PEP 0484 - the Numeric Tower

[Laura Creighton]

I forgot something.

In a message of Wed, 14 Oct 2015 21:21:30 -0000, Oscar Benjamin writes:

>The point of static type checking is to detect precisely these kinds of 
>errors.

Yes, but what I expect the type annotations to be used for, especially
in the SciPy world, is to make things easier for Numba to generate fast
code.  I really hope that the SciPy world is not going to go nuts for
useless annotations, but I have, alas, all too many years dealing with
people whose desire to have faster code vastly outstrips their ability
to understand just what is possible in that regard.  

In James Barrie's novel, Peter Pan, earthly children are given the
ability to fly by having Fairy Dust (supplied by the unwilling
Tinkerbell) sprinkled over them.  I now know that what a large number
of people who want faster code, really want is magic Fairy Dust.  They
wanted psyco to be it, they wanted pypy to be it, and now they want 
Numba to be it.  The notion that sprinkling type annotations all over
their code will make it fly _absolutely deeply resonates_ with how
these people wish the world worked.  They will believe that type
annotations are magic fairy dust until they are forced to confront
the fact poorly written code can not be made fly until it is rewritten.

Laura