I don&#x27;t know ML, but I really do wish Python had this feature.  The only problem I see is that this makes it hard to refer to a function without calling it (see below).  How does ML solve this?<p><pre><code>    def g(): return 5
    assert g() == 5
    assert g != 5
</code></pre>
Without parenthesis, how can the language distinguish the last two lines?  How does ML do it?  Would the same trick work in Python?  I know Ruby has optional parenthesis, but functions aren&#x27;t quite as first class there as they are in Python, which is why the have Proc and whatnot.