[Python-Dev] @decoration of classes (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum gvanrossum at gmail.com
Wed Mar 23 04:20:17 CET 2005

I just noticed that decoration of classes was not included with the @decoration syntax that made it into Python 2.4. While I understand that class decoration was not a part of PEP 318, I remember people were interested in decorating classes for all sorts of reasons, among them as a prefix notation for documenting (which seems to nearly satisfy Nicholas Jacobson) as well as a partial metaclass replacement.

Is the fact that it didn't make it into 2.4 due to a pronouncement that I missed/forgot, lack of time, or was it merely forgotten?

I don't recall whether I pronounced or not, but it is my opinion that this isn't addressing nearly as big an issue for classes as it is for functions/methods; in particular, the main problem of having all the special handling after the body of the function doesn't occur for classes, where you can put all the special handling at the top of the body, perhaps aided by a crafty metaclass.

It would take a lot of convincing before I would think that class @decorators are better than metaclasses.

In any case the fact that it wasn't in the PEP was plenty of reason not to add it to 2.4.

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

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