why is this cast required?

[Dejan Lekic]

On Saturday, 26 September 2026 at 16:49:48 UTC, DanielG wrote:
> I appreciate the reply, but that's not the question I am asking.
>
> I am asking why there's a difference between an explicitly 
> typed variable, and an explicitly typed function argument - 
> both of which 'receive' the mixed-type array literal.
>
> The compiler will implicitly upgrade the function pointers to 
> delegates in one case, but not the other. What is the basis, or 
> philosophy behind this policy?
>
> Why do variable assignments receive this treatment, but not 
> function arguments?
>
> IMO this violates the Principle of Least Astonishment.

A function argument generally has to be given a type independent 
of which parameter type it'll end up matching, because overload 
resolution needs to compare each argument's own type against 
every candidate's parameter types to pick the best match — if 
argument inference depended on "the parameter type of whichever 
overload gets picked," that's circular. A variable declaration ( 
`IntFunc[] explicit = [...]` ) doesn't have this problem: there's 
exactly one destination type, known up front, so the compiler can 
safely bias the literal toward it.