Author here. The language has still many inconsistencies but not these ones.

Import functions is done the same way:

  func foo(a: Int): Int
  import func foo(Int): Int

May be the doc is outdated.

The multiple declaration is consistent with assignment:

  var w, h = 640, 480
  w, h = 640, 680
  w, h = getBoundingBox(obj)

The syntax

  var a = Int: 32

is unusual compared to many other languages because it just use a simple syntax:

  var id = expr

The type is prefixed only to resolve literals:

  var a = Int32: 42
  var b = Uint8: 42

It can be useful in generic functions:

  println("The answer is \a", Float32: 42)

But to create uninitialized variables I had to keep the syntax:

  var id: Type

The parallel assignment just work mostly like it does in ruby so that doesn't look weird to me (except the need for 'var' in the first place).

Agreed on the rest, though I don't understand what the problem would be with recursion. Is it using reference passing also for primitives like integers?

Agreed.. and what is going on with the `!` syntax? The docs are not exactly clear on the purpose in all cases.

https://tibleiz.net/copper/documentation.html#basic-syntax