[Python-Dev] Re: Decorators after 'def' should be reconsidered (original) (raw)

Skip Montanaro skip at pobox.com
Thu Aug 12 21:14:35 CEST 2004 

Laurence> I must say I like this idea a lot. It seems much more in
Laurence> keeping with the rest of the python block structure. You could
Laurence> even think of decorators as bullet points. Now if only someone
Laurence> hadn't already found a use for '*' character...

I think '*' is syntactically available for this use. It's not used as a unary operator I don't believe. The *args thing isn't available in the context where decorators would be used.

That also has the nice side effect of turning @ back over to tools like leo and ipython. Unlike '|' it's not likely to be mistaken for other commonly used characters. Also, a unary '*' or '**' already have some special meaning when used in and around function definitions, so seeing

*deco
def func(...):
    ...

or

def func(...):
    *deco
    ...

might be a small hint to readers of the code that deco is somehow involved in the function's definition.

Skip

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