[Python-Dev] 2.4a2, and @decorators (original) (raw)

Jp Calderone exarkun at divmod.com
Tue Aug 3 18:06:12 CEST 2004

Guido van Rossum wrote:

[snip]

I'm speechless. If the ambiguous [classmethod] def foo(x): ... is rejected because it doesn't look like it does something to foo, how come there's suddenly a crop of solutions that have the same problem being proposed? What you write looks like a call to the function decorate(), followed by a function method definition. The "action-at-a-distance" that is presumed by the decorate() call is difficult to explain and a precedent for other worse hacks. Its only point in favor seems to be that it doesn't use '@'.

In my view, the strongest point in favor of a solution that involves calling functions rather than changing syntax is that the functions involved can be placed in the standard library rather than the interpreter.

I believe a widely held view is that features can be supported by the stdlib do not merit language changes?

Moreover, I have the impression that many people are clamoring for this feature, no matter how it ends up looking, because they simply must have it. Well, if they must have it, why wait for 2.4, when clearly they can have it right now?

Jp

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