[Python-Dev] Making staticmethod objects callable? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Thu Mar 2 20:24:59 CET 2006

On 3/1/06, Nicolas Fleury <nidoizo at yahoo.com> wrote:

Guido van Rossum wrote: > In which context did you find a need for defining a static method and > calling it inside the class definition? I'm guessing that what you're > playing dubious scoping games.

I'm not. I almost never use staticmethod actually. I find them not very pythonic, in my humble own definition of pythonic. But since staticmethod is a standard built-in, I considered valid the question of a programmer relatively new to Python (but obviously appreciating its dynamic nature) wondering why calling a static method inside a class definition doesn't work. A use case is not hard to imagine, especially a private static method called only to build a class attribute.

Imagined use cases aren't particularly interesting.

As to the "why" question, the answer is simply that it wasn't considered an important use case since nobody could come up with a reason why you'd want to do that apart from exploring the language.

I don't know the philosophy behind making staticmethod a built-in (instead of a function in a module only used in specific occasions), but my guess was that what is normal scoping/regrouping in Java/C++/C# was worth common use support in Python. But your comment about "dubious scoping games" makes me think I, again, didn't guess right;)

At the time there wasn't much thought about it -- it just seemed reasonable to support something that was supported by syntax in other languages with at least a built-in decorator in Python.

So yes, I'm proposing something I'll probably never use, but I think would make Python more "welcoming".

I don't see how adding featuers that nobody uses helps.

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

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