[Types-sig] Static typing: Towards closure?

[Tim Peters]

[condensing a long & masterful piece to its vital
 essence here]

> I don't like the syntax proposed before very
> much; what's wrong with C++ template brackets?

In C++, it's the "maximal munch" lexing rule, which tokenizes e.g.

    Stack<Stack<T>>
as
    Stack
    <
    Stack
    <
    T
    >>

and the result is a mysterious (even after you've been bit a dozen times by
the same thing!) syntax error.  That's where all the "funny spaces" in C++
templates come from -- to avoid the angle brackets getting parsed as shift
operators.  Sucks.  Other than that, it's fine.

That's all from me!  I'm recovering from a flu and don't have the time or
the functioning brain cells to do much more now.

I do want to thank Guido for contributing what has clearly been a great deal
of careful thought to all this (he has confessed in the past that he is not
a swift writer, so this may have taken him all of a half hour to pump out
<wink>).  And, of course, by "Guido" I mean Paul and Greg and Scott and Tony
and John and Gordon and ... too.  Oh ya, also Guido!

dreading-the-day-everyone-figures-out-how-hard-this-
    agenda-really-is<0.7-wink>-ly y'rs  - tim