Typed Python with MyPy

Support for “type hints” was introduced in PEP 484 and implemented for the first time in python 3.5. As Python is not and will not at any time in the future be a proper statically typed language, the PEP describes a method of “hinting” at types using structured comments and other syntactic sugar which the Python 3.5 compiler studiously ignores. External utilities can then interpret and enforce as they will. While in theory this allows for competition among approaches, at present there’s only one functional type checker: MyPy .

On the whole, I’ve very much enjoyed writing typed Python. It’s corrected one of the Python pain points I’ve long chafed against, which is the lack of parse-time argument type checking. Duck typing can be nice, but… okay, it’s really not all that nice.By taking the time to define the classes I want up front and define their behavior in unit tests, I’m able to write safer, cleaner code. By defining the types of parameters, I lose the risk of swapping them or leaving them out somewhere.

It’s an obvious point, but having better support for static code analysis in Python is really very nice.