[Python-3000] PEP: rename it.next() to it.next(), add a next() built-in (original) (raw)

Thomas Wouters thomas at python.org
Tue Mar 6 12:19:26 CET 2007

On 3/6/07, Ka-Ping Yee <python at zesty.ca> wrote:

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, Neil Schemenauer wrote: > The argument that all "protocol" methods should have double > underscore names seems to be pretty weak too. It's only an appeal > for consistency, I think. We don't suggest that file-like objects > should implement read() instead of read(), for example. There is a convention and it is applied quite consistently: Double-underscores are for methods implicitly invoked by a language construct.

I believe you misinterpret the convention. Rather, as I see it, it is:

Double-underscores are for methods implicitly invoked
by a language construct, and should not be called
directly on foreign objects.

(So perhaps it's not much of a convention, if we can't agree on it :) The * methods can be seen as a private API. 'next' is not part of it. I see no problem what so ever with the interpreter calling a non-underscored function. I do not understand why this is a problem.

I'm -1 on the change. I would be -0 (maybe +0) if I thought we had a chance in hell of doing this migration gracefully, but we don't. The translator can't really handle all the cornercases we currently have. The best we can do is add a next method to classes that have a next method but no next method, and I simply do not think that's worth it. I am not convinced there is an actual problem we are solving, other than that some people are confused about the current situation. Other people would be confused if it was different, so I do not subscribe to the validity of that argument. The single reason I like the builtin next() is the two-argument version, which is quite similar to the two-argument iter(). I would prefer adding it without renaming .next to .next.

-- Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org>

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