[Types-sig] Back to basics

[Paul Prescod]

Greg Stein wrote:
> 
> This is all fine as long as the design does not preclude the availability
> of typedecl information at runtime. 

I totally agree. I would even like a type-checking function/operator
(preferably the former for implementation reasons).

> Some of these discussions about new
> namespaces or not worrying about names being defined could prevent that.

I don't follow the part following "or".

> I've proposed plenty of syntax for the typedecls and interface
> declarations. I don't think there has been a solid proposal yet for
> parameterizations. I would recommend that the syntax design at least
> starts with the proposal that I set up to save some work and provide a
> basis for discussion about how to add parameterization.

Agreed.

> [ personally: I'd recommend parameterization get punted to V2, although I
>   worry that if we don't take its syntax into account, we might preclude
>   its addition later on. ]

Agreed. Tim Peters convinced me that it isn't actually too big of a
deal. Parameterization is almost like string substitution. In some
lexical scope, _T stands for a paramater that is substituted in when a
concrete object is declared. If you treat it like string substitution
then the semantics are pretty simple. One minor detail to work out is
whether to predeclare the list of parameter variables or just look for
names beginning with underscores.

 Paul Prescod