[Python-Dev] PEP 318: Suggest we drop it (original) (raw)

Kevin J. Butler python-kbutler at sabaydi.com
Wed Aug 18 23:33:14 CEST 2004

There is no universally liked syntax (or even a universally tolerable syntax)
decorators will incosistently retain or drop docstrings (this may even be the most appropriate thing to do)
a "decorated" function may have an arbitrarily distant relationship with the function as implemented in the def statement (this is a killer)
if you want to decorate a single function two separate ways, you're back to 2.3 syntax - say, one that logs, checks parameters, etc., and the "internal" optimal version. None of the decorator syntaxes facilitate this.

Because of all these issues, I think we should drop PEP 318.

The 2.3 form seems more reasonable all the time:

def __func( self ): pass spanishInquisition = mydecorator( __func ) spanishInquisition.doc= """Something unexpected"""

parrot = otherdecorator( __func ) parrot.doc = """And now for something completely different"""

Are any of the syntaxes enough better to justify the irritation or divisiveness of including it?

Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon, indeed...