[Python-Dev] PEP 318 restrictions on elements (original) (raw)

[Python-Dev] PEP 318 - generality of list; restrictions on elements

Just van Rossum just at letterror.com
Wed Mar 10 10:52:01 EST 2004

Aahz wrote:

On Mon, Mar 08, 2004, Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote: > On Monday 08 March 2004 04:00 pm, Aahz wrote: >> >> Principle of least surprise, essentially. There are already going >> to be enough obscure uses for this; let's try to keep the >> completely whacky out of it. You'll have to come up with an >> awfully convincing use case to change my mind. > > I'd be very surprised if the interpreter cared that a decorator > returned a callable; what should it care?

The interpreter doesn't care; people care. That's precisely why it should be a documented requirement.

Presumably people also care about contortions like this:

def blackhole(*args): ... return None ... class Foo(object): ... metaclass = blackhole ... print Foo None

Yet that doesn't mean Python has to disallow it (and indeed it doesn't).

Btw. +1 from me for

def func(args) [decorators]:

and -1 for

def func [decorators] (args):

I already frown when people put a space between the function name and arglist, I wouldn't want to separate them even more.

Just

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