Re: First-class constructor callables

On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 3:21 PM Arnaud Le Blanc <arnaud.lb@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi Valentin, > > On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 2:20 PM Valentin Udaltsov > <udaltsov.valentin@gmail.com> wrote: > > Question for Larry and Arnaud: > > > > In PFA v2, you note that constructor references pose significant technical challenges. > > Could you elaborate on what those challenges are and whether they are fundamental, or > > potentially addressable with a more limited or explicit syntax such as new > > Foo(...)? > > One issue is that partial application needs to resolve the function > being applied, but constructors can not be resolved without > instantiating the class first (at least, not on all classes). To clarify, constructors are normally resolved after creating an object, by calling the get_constructor() handler on the object. The handler isn't known before creating the object, at least for internal classes, so we can't resolve a constructor without creating an object first. This would have to be addressed in order to support partial application of classes.