Well, yes; it&#x27;s called type annotation (as noted in comments both here and at the original article).  Telling the compiler it&#x27;s &quot;just a String&quot; (or more precisely a dictionary containing strings) cuts the compile time to 100ms.<p>Yes, the type inference in this case could use some improvement -- maybe guess the simplest possible interpretation first, and search the space of alternatives in the background, assuming there&#x27;s a mechanism to go back for a do-over if any are eventually found...?