[Python-Dev] Status of PEP 484 and the typing module

[Jim J. Jewett]

At Thu May 21 22:27:50 CEST 2015, Guido wrote:

> I want to encourage users to think about annotations as types,
> and for most users the distinction between type and class is
> too subtle,

So what is the distinction that you are trying to make?

That a type refers to a variable (name), and a class refers to a
piece of data (object) that might be bound to that name?

Whatever the intended distinction is, please be explicit in the
PEP, even if you decide to paper it over in normal code.  For
example, the above distinction would help to explain why the
typing types can't be directly instantiated, since they aren't
meant to refer to specific data. (They can still be used as
superclasses because practicality beats purity, and using them
as a marker base class is practical.)

-jJ

--

If there are still threading problems with my replies, please
email me with details, so that I can try to resolve them.  -jJ