[Python-ideas] Ordered storage of keyword arguments (original) (raw)

Stefan Behnel stefan_ml at behnel.de
Fri Oct 29 07:45:16 CEST 2010

Greg Ewing, 28.10.2010 23:22:

M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

Python has always tried to make the most common use case simple, so asking programmers to use a meta-class to be able to access the order of definitions in a class definition isn't exactly what the normal Python programmer would expect. But needing to know the order of definitions in a class is a very uncommon thing to want to do in the first place.

Uncommon, sure, but there are use cases. A couple of Python based DSLs use classes as namespaces. Think of SOAP interface classes or database table definitions. In these cases, users usually have the field/column order in the back of their head when they write or read the code. So it's actually a bit surprising and somewhat error prone when the fields show up in arbitrary (and unpredictable!) order at runtime. And even on the same system, the order can change arbitrarily when new fields are added.

Stefan

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