[Python-Dev] Re: Bad idea: dict(kwargs) (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Fri, 04 Jul 2003 13:39:18 -0400

In http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-June/036502.html Bengt Richter made a strong argument that dict(kwargs) causes problems for subclasses of dict. There was no response. After thinking about it, I'm forced to agree that this is poor design.

Guido, please Pronounce on this officially. I realize that it's a bit late to remove, but you've always expressed distaste for adding features that are easily expressed with a one-liner: def kwdict(**kwargs): return kwargs

Rejected. I have already responded to this, but apparently only in private; at the end Bengt agreed with me that there was no need to change the API, and that his reasoning was flawed. (The point is that subclass constructors, unlike regular methods, can have a different signature than the base class constructor.)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)