def (str) greeting((str) name):
def (str) greeting((str) name):
1. Instead of being more like C-style function declarations, they look a lot more like C-style type conversions.
2. However closer it may be to C (type before identifier I guess?) it's pretty far from any other mainstream language. For instance, C++ has support for -> syntax for function types (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22514855/arrow-operator-i...) and some other languages (I can think of Scala) use name: Type declarations.
As a personal preference, I find the python type hinting more familiar than your example, despite (myself) being most familiar with C-like syntax.
Putting the type after the name feels more natural, and the : also translated nicely into 'of type' (or if you prefer for functions 'returns type').
For familiarity, while the C family of languages favors "type name" declarations, the Pascal and ML family of languages use "name: type" instead. So, familiarity is entirely a function of what language you used before.
Second, C-style declarations have their problems, which is why they aren't used much outside of languages that derive from C. Generally, you look up declarations by searching for the name of the variable to determine the type; this generally has less cognitive overhead if the variable is at the start of the clause, not the end, ideally separated by punctuation (note how the "name: type" syntax mirrors Python dictionary "key: value" syntax) [1].
[1] Also, in C/C++ the "type name" syntax complicates the parser, as the parser has to be able to distinguish between type names and other identifiers; while this wouldn't be an issue for Python, there is still no reason to perpetuate this syntax choice.