[Python-Dev] PEP 457: Syntax For Positional-Only Parameters

[Paul Moore]

On 9 October 2013 18:00, Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> On 10/09/2013 09:05 AM, Paul Moore wrote:
>>
>>
>> I remain -1 on forcing "Python syntax" to support all of these odd
>> corner cases (and positional-only is already a corner case,
>> range/addch are seriously so).
>
>
> Considering the prevalence of positional-only functions and methods, I don't
> think they can be called a corner-case. (Or maybe I've just had the bad luck
> to run into all of the few there are.)

You're probably right - I was exaggerating, sorry. I do however
consider most positional-only arguments in builtins to be an
implementation artifact - if they could have been
positional-or-keyword when they were introduced, they may well have
have been (keyword args in C were a later addition to the C API, I
can't recall exactly when but a good chunk of the existing builtins
were already there when they arrived).

Paul.