Why does Scala apply thunks automatically, sometimes?

Question

At just after 2:40 in ShadowofCatron\'s Scala Tutorial 3 video, it\'s pointed out that the parentheses following the name of a thunk are optional. \"B

Answer 1

The default cause, when you write:

val b = f

is to evaluate the function and assign the result to b, as you have noticed. You can use the _, or you can explicitly specify the type of b:

// These all have the same effect
val b = f _
val b: () => Int = f
val b: Function0[Int] = f