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numbers.rst uses esoteric and needless '<:' notation #161005
Description
Documentation
In this section: https://docs.python.org/3/library/numbers.html#implementing-the-arithmetic-operations there's:
awill be an instance ofA, which is a subtype ofComplex(a : A <: Complex), andb : B <: Complex.
The '<:' notation is not explained, and this is the only page in the docs that uses it. We can understand it from this sentence, but that also means the notation isn't needed. Can we remove it the four times it appears in this section?
Linked PRs
Reacted by Bénédikt Tran, Hugo van Kemenade and Terry Jan Reedy
Reacted by Hamza Ameer
Activity
gvanrossum commentedon Oct 31, 2026
Makes sense to me.
nedbat commentedon Oct 31, 2026
That could either mean, "I understand the notation, it's fine as it is," or, "This is a good issue to fix."
gvanrossum commentedon Oct 31, 2026
It was an answer to your final question. IOW I agree this is worth fixing.
Docs: gh-161005: simplify subtype notation in `numbers.rst` (#161006)
[3.15] Docs: gh-161005: simplify subtype notation in `numbers.rst` (G…
[3.14] Docs: gh-161005: simplify subtype notation in `numbers.rst` (G…