[Python-Dev] Defining properties - a use case for class decorators? (original) (raw)

Jim Jewett jimjjewett at gmail.com
Wed Oct 19 15:44:09 CEST 2005

(In http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-October/057409.html,) Nick Coghlan suggested allowing attribute references as binding targets.

x = property("Property x (must be less than 5)")

def x.get(instance): ...

Josiah shivered and said it was hard to tell what was even intended, and (in http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-October/057437.html) Nick agreed that it was worse than

x.get = f given: def f(): ...

Could someone explain to me why it is worse?

I understand not wanting to modify object x outside of its definition.

I understand that there is some trickiness about instancemethods and bound variables.

But these objections seem equally strong for both forms, as well as for the current "equivalent" of

def f(): ...
x.get = f

The first form (def x.get) at least avoids repeating (or even creating) the temporary function name.

The justification for decorators was to solve this very problem within a module or class. How is this different? Is it just that attributes shouldn't be functions, and this might encourage the practice?

-jJ

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