[Python-Dev] bytes.from_hex() (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Sat Feb 18 17:22:01 CET 2006

Michael Hudson wrote:

There's one extremely significant example where the value of something impacts on the type of something else: functions. The types of everything involved in str([1]) and len([1]) are the same but the results are different. This shows up in PyPy's type annotation; most of the time we just track types indeed, but when something is called we need to have a pretty good idea of the potential values, too.

Relavent to the point at hand? No. Apologies for wasting your time :)

Actually, I think it is relevant. I never thought about it this way, but now that you mention it, you are right.

This demonstrates that the string argument to .encode is actually a function name, atleast the way it is implemented now. So .encode("uu") and .encode("rot13") are two different methods, instead of being a single method.

This brings me back to my original point: "rot13" should be a function, not a parameter to some function. In essence, .encode reimplements apply(), with the added feature of not having to pass the function itself, but just its name.

Maybe this design results from a really deep understanding of

Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

Regards, Martin

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