[Python-Dev] Re: Source-level backward compatibility requirements
-logging and apply() - addendum
Aahz
aahz at pythoncraft.com
Tue Dec 9 12:29:45 EST 2003
On Tue, Dec 09, 2003, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>Fredrik
>>
>> in my experience, you always lose your audience when you introduce the
>> callable(*args, **kwargs) syntax, and you don't get them back until you
>> explain that the notion is apply(callable, args, kwargs).
>
> Maybe it depends on the audience?
>
> In my experience (admitted it was a while ago), the desire to call a
> function with arguments that are already given as an array often comes
> to relative newbies who've never heard of apply in any other language
> (isn't it a Lisp thing?).
There's also the issue that IME teaching apply() usually comes after
teaching
def foo(*args, **kwargs):
which makes the symmetry easier to understand, IMO.
--
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/
Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote
programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
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