A modern programming language that makes developers happier.

kotlinlang

<https://www.reddit.com/r/Kotlin/comments/swafkr/a_mildly_annoying_inconsistent_syntax_in_kotlin/|Reddit question>, but curious if anyone knows - why does function declaration use ":" to designate the return type, but lambda syntax uses "-&gt;"? Was there some language design reason this was required?

honestly the `-&gt;` really bugs me in swift and python (typing); `:` is consistently property/function return type in Kotlin

so it is inconsistent with function types, but if they used `:` then we'd have declarations like
```val callback: (): Unit```
and I think that's worse than `-&gt;` just for that case

It is but - why not `-&gt;` for everything then?

because in every other use case, it's `: Type`

```class Child(...) -&gt; Parent```
is definitely questionable, and function syntax and class declaration (especially with primary constructor) syntax mirror each other

A Child doesn't return a Parent; hence, the distinction

I think I am with you <@U01RQU61RPH>,
`:` should still remain for inheritance and type specification for properties and function arguments
`-&gt;` be used as a return type

Although to be fair, the current syntax is not confusing at all. It is easy to pick it up with very little effort