[Python-Dev] PEP 3103: A Switch/Case Statement (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Wed Jun 28 19:36:28 CEST 2006

On 6/28/06, Talin <talin at acm.org> wrote:

Guido van Rossum wrote: > Let's just drop the switchable subroutine proposal. It's not viable.

Perhaps not - but at the same time, when discussing new language features, let's not just limit ourselves to what other languages have done already.

Well, Python 3000 is explcitly not intended as a platform for arbitrary experimentation with feature invention (read PEP 3000).

I've gotten quite a bit of mileage out of borrowing from other languages instead of inventing my own stuff, so I don't want to go out inventing as a replacement of researching options that have already been tried elsewhere.

Forget subroutines for a moment - the main point of the thread was the idea that the dispatch table was built explicitly rather than automatically - that instead of arguing over first-use vs. function-definition, we let the user decide. I'm sure that my specific proposal isn't the only way that this could be done.

But anything that makes the build explicit is going to be so much more ugly. And I still think you're trying to solve the wrong problem.

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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