syntax difference

[Jim Lee]

On 06/17/2018 11:10 AM, Rick Johnson wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> Bart Wrote:
>>> So what's a Type Hint associated with in Python?
>> Since it is a type *hint*, not a type *declaration*, the
>> interpreter can and does ignore it.
> But yet, the _programmer_ cannot ignore it. Does that make
> any sense to you, or anyone else with half a brain?
>
>> It makes no change at all to the execution model of the
>> language.
> Then why the *HELL* are type-hints an official part of the
> Python language syntax? Had type hints been implemented as
> comments (for instance: a special class of comment in the
> same way that doc-strings are a special class of strings),
> then a programmer could ignore them! Heck, i have even have
> a feature in my editor that will hide all comments and doc-
> strings! And the code to perform this task is fairly simple.
>
> But it's gonna one hell of a _nightmare_ to remove type-
> hints from source code when they are _interleaved_ with the
> damn source code, and considered by the interpreter to be
> syntax.
>
>> But the human reader, linters, IDEs and editors can
>> associate it with the name it annotates, and use it as a
>> hint as to what is intended to happen, and flag any
>> discrepancies.
> And each of these could have done the same with a "type-hint
> comment". But oh no, that would be too easy! And the whole
> point here is to cause a big fat ruckus? Isn't it, Mr.
> D'Aprano?
>
>
>
IMHO, trying to shoehorn static type checking on top of a dynamically 
typed language shows that the wrong language was chosen for the job.

-Jim