[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 318: Decorators last before colon (original) (raw)

David Abrahams dave at boost-consulting.com
Mon Apr 5 03:49:32 EDT 2004

Greg Ewing <greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> writes:

There are different kinds of aesthetics. Guido's proposal has grown on me from a visual aesthetics point of view. After I worked with it a little bit, I realized it really is much prettier than decorators-before-colon. Your tastes must be different from mine, then, because it doesn't strike me as any prettier visually, either. I don't think I can fully separate these different kinds of aesthetics in my mind, anyway. To me, a piece of syntax isn't just something to look at -- it has a grammar, and it has a meaning, and if the grammar and the meaning and the way it looks on the page don't all agree with each other, it strikes a discordant note. When I read the syntax def foo(args) [classmethod]: ... it says to me "Define a function foo, with these args, and which happens to be a classmethod. Here's the body..." On the other hand, when I see [classmethod] def foo(args): ... the little voice in my head doesn't really say anything coherent at all.

Lest we get the idea that there's any absolute measure of aesthetics:

+1

restoring-nature's-equilibrium-ly, Dave

-- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com

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