Suggestions for 2002

[Paul Rubin]

"Raymond Hettinger" <othello at javanet.com> writes:
> Suggestion #1:   Issue a dubious syntax warning for multiple
> assignments where there are overlaps between the assigned-to
> variables:
> 
> >>> a = ['cat','dog']
> >>> i = 1
> >>> i, a[i] = 0, 'boo'
> >>> a
> ['boo', 'dog']        # not ['cat','boo'] which was expected

I'd call this an outright Python bug even if it's documented in the
reference manual.  What's the justification?  From the doc, it appears
that even x,y=y,x only works for fairly subtle reasons.  This seems
bogus.  It would be better if assigning a sequence made a temporary
sequence of the target values before assigning.


> Suggestion #2:  Add new built-in functions:  xmap, xfilter, and xzip.

Sure, these sound good.  I think it will be a while before all the
consequences of adding generators to Python settle in.  This is one of them.

> Suggestion #3:  Allow 'yield' with no return value.

I don't understand this so well.  Yield is more like a print statement
than like a return statement.

> Add a yield-like keyword 'accept' which suspends execution
> just like 'yield' but creates an object with two methods
> .submit() and .flush() which can take arguments and feed them
> into 'accept'.  Flush returns and raises a StopStream exception.

What you're asking for now is coroutines.  Tim Peters will probably
have more to say but it may not be feasible given how the
implementation works.