one very curious design decision is to allow type aliases either before or after the type. so, from the examples, you have

> setIdThenSave(newid Num, Bool recursively) { ... }

i like the idea of letting a type do double duty as a variable name if it's obvious in context, and being aliased by an explicit name if wanted/needed, but letting the order be irrelevant sounds like unnecessary flexibility to me - it makes writing no easier, and reading harder.