[Python-Dev] Problems with the new super() (original) (raw)

Isaac Morland ijmorlan at cs.uwaterloo.ca
Mon May 12 16:48:04 CEST 2008

On Fri, 2 May 2008, Greg Ewing wrote:

Guido van Rossum wrote:

The alternative would be to make it a keyword, which seemed excessive (plus, it would be odd if super() were a keyword when self is not). If it's really such a useful thing as to warrant so much magic to support it, then I think it deserves to have a keyword. Conversely, I would say that if it doesn't deserve a keyword, it also doesn't deserve that much magic.

One might even go further and say that if it's that magic, then it's a keyword by definition.

Certainly I would want a syntax-highlighting editor to highlight it somehow, and if the editor has a "rename" feature to rename a variable and replace all references to it (but not other uses of the same identifiers in different scope), then it probably should at least alert the programmer before allowing a rename to or from the magic name.

Isaac Morland CSCF Web Guru DC 2554C, x36650 WWW Software Specialist

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