[Python-3000] Metaclasses in Py3K (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Sun Dec 17 00:53:31 CET 2006

Talin wrote:

My personal feeling on this issue is that just because the "keyword=X" syntax opens up other possibilities, doesn't mean we have to use them.

Even if the syntax was never used for anything else, I still don't like it. Metaclasses are an elegant concept that deserves an equally elegant syntax. To my eyes, the keyword proposal just swaps one ugly syntax for another.

The main use case for all this seems to be that some metaclasses would like to know the order in which attributes were defined. So here's an alternative proposal: Leave the syntax the way it is, and always use a specialised dict that remembers the order of definition. The metaclass can then use that information or ignore it as it wishes.

-- Greg

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