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Ah, I should've been more explicit that I was referring to programming language syntax. For example, this is unfortunately not the convention in Python, Rust, Swift, or TypeScript.

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Ah gotcha, I actually 100% agree here. I think both the parser (and my brain) would probably be better served by space on both sides of a variable : type (or type : variable) declaration.

For my part, while I have some mixed feelings about introducing whitespace signifigance, I sympathize w the OP and in TypeScript projects, have sometimes wished for more intuitive disambiguation. As for conventions, I might prefer

key: value

(trailing space for eg JS props), vs

foo :type

(leading space for types)

I try to do this at home [eg 0] and it flabbergasted some coworkers when one such notation accidentally slipped into a day job PR last year. I didn't try to argue for it- but I like it personally, mainly for making control flow easier to skim.

0: https://github.com/Suncapped/babs/blob/prod/src/shared/Share...

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