Explicit Name For Default Constructor

[fweth]

There is this ambiguity between types and default constructors, so [Foo(a)] is interpreted as 'call the default constructor of Foo with argument a' but [a].map(Foo) gives an error because Foo is interpreted as type, so we have to type [a].map((x)=>Foo(x)). It would be cool to have a way to explicitly call the default constructor, like [a].map(Foo.Foo) or [a].map(Foo.constructor).

[eernstg]

This is essentially a proposal to support tearing off constructors, hence a duplicate of #216. (Please vote up that one if you wish to support this feature!)

You mention using Foo as an expression, and that does indeed evaluate to an instance of Type that reifies the type Foo. However, it is also an error to use Foo.named as an expression in the following context:

class Foo {
  Foo.named();
}

void main() => Foo.named; // Error.

So we'd need to support tearing off a constructor as a first step, and then we'd need some syntax to denote the constructor whose name is the class name; one proposal given in #216 is Foo.new.

[fweth]

Ah, sorry, I didn't find that one. Thanks for the link!