[Python-Dev] Explicit Lexical Scoping (pre-PEP?)

[Jan Kanis]

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:28:12 +0200, Phillip J. Eby <pje at telecommunity.com>  
wrote:

> Here's the reason I think this keeps coming up, and why Guido's "just  
> use a class" argument doesn't really address the actual problem that's  
> taking place.

I agree this argument is not generally applicable in every case, but why  
not in this specific situation?

> In short: in *theory*, a rebinding operator or "nonlocal" declaration is  
> unnecessary.  In *practice*, having one seems quite useful every time  
> you wander down the path that leads to having to rewrite your code just  
> because the language won't let you do that one tiny thing -

I think this argument is a too general one. To me it is too close to  
"let's add every possible feature we can find, because it might be usefull  
to someone" :)
One of the things I like about python is that it doesn't do this, and  
therefore the manual stays relatively small and I don't have to remember  
all kinds of rarely used features to make best use of the language. (I  
assume this is not a point of debate. repeating: Python is not Lisp ;-) )

Most of the arguments I've seen on the list are about 'how can we  
implement this', I'd like to see more arguments on whether this should be  
implemented at all.
I was hoping someone would come up with a good example, so does anyone  
have one??

> - or so it feels like to the person who's experiencing it.

Have you ever been that person, or come across such a situation?

O, and I don't think the inc() example is a good one. In this incrementer  
the function call is all about the side effects, it's even in the name  
'increment'. Incrementing is useless unless you increment /something/, so  
this should be better implemented as a class.