J2 proposal: keyword

[David Pokorny]

"Anthony Baxter" <anthonybaxter at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.2175.1093233838.5135.python-list at python.org...
> On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 00:23:32 +0100 (BST), Michael Sparks
> <zathras at thwackety.com> wrote:
> >      I discovered this after replacing "decorate" with "using" and
> >      rerunning the test suite... Incidentally the syntax also allows
> >      code like this:
> >
> >      using:
> >          staticmethod synchronised memoise deprecated
> >      def: foo(bar):
> >          "This function foos bars all day long"
> >          pass
>
> The pie-decorator syntax was modified shortly after a2 to require
> one decorator per line. I think for readability's sake, this was a good
> call, and would urge you to do this in any new syntax.

There must be some cognitive-visual thingamajig going on here because I find

using:
    staticmethod synchronized memoize
def bar(foo):
    "upends the established order of metasyntactic keywords"
    pass

much more readable than

@staticmethod synchronized memoize
def bar(foo):
    "upends the established order of metasyntactic keywords"
    pass

[I think it has something to do with the traffic jam at the left margin.]
Aesthetically, putting multiple decorators per line allows the eye to scan
in all of them in one fell swoop. In other words, the one-liner

using:
    staticmethod synchronized memoize
def bar(foo):
    "To colon or not to colon? Def is the question."
    pass

is easy on the eye while

using:
    staticmethod
    synchronized
    memoize
def bar(foo):
    "english teachers will call you on putting two colons in one sentence"
    pass

looks like the SUV of decorators ;)

David