Comment by viraptor

Considering the time when it was written, it could mean for example Java's ridiculously long generic declarations which couldn't be inferred or aliased.

Things are much better and more ergonomic these days.

Specific example - some languages will allow you to do:

    fun f(x: int):   // return type inferred
      var foo = something(x)
      return foo

While others need (including type erasure getting in the way):

    Complete<Version<Of<Generic, Foo>>>> f(int x) {
        Complete<Version<Of<Generic, Foo>>>> foo = (Complete<Version<Of<Generic, Foo>>>>) something(x);
        return foo;
    }