That’s a shallow problem that goes away as you start using the language. Lifetimes need something to stand out as an identifier. 'a is weird, but works. Whethe

That’s a shallow problem that goes away as you start using the language. Lifetimes need something to stand out as an identifier. 'a is weird, but works. Whether it could use a different ASCII sigil is a bikeshed problem. Types borrowed <> from C++ to look less weird to C++ programmers. But this again is just a surface level issue. Semantically, the wrapper types are incredibly useful. Having all nested types spelled out is convenient when reading code – you know what you're getting and what are the standard properties of it.