Call for signatories for J2

[Paul Rubin]

Michael Sparks <zathras at thwackety.com> writes:
> It's very possible that we might end up with @pie syntax or nothing. (I
> suspect the latter is very unlikely, but it's still possible)

I don't have a strong opinion of whether J2 is better than @pie or vice
versa.  I dislike both.

> My personal initial reaction to the syntax was "ugh", followed by listening
> to arguments and deciding that I could live with @pie happily (I do like
> perl after all so I've not got a huge aversion to punctuation). 

My problem with @pie is that it doesn't get enough mileage out of the
@ character.  I'd almost rather use @ as a keyword introducer, like #
in the prepreprocessor.  And of course, @pie should be useable on
classes rather than just functions.  

>    * People will revert to using metaclass approaches, which having
>      tried them I think people will find worse than something more
>      explicit & in your face. (Almost any syntax on the wiki IMO is
>      better than a metaclass approach)

I think decorators can do things that metaclasses can't.

> been used in earnest then IMHO option A1 should be chosen, via a
> __future__ import. Whilst I'm obviously in favour of J2, option A1
> strikes me as by _far_ the simplest to write or provide tools to
> programmatically munge people's code if syntax does change. (Much
> like the tools to remove unnecessary __future__ statements)

I really wouldn't worry too much about the effect on current syntax
tools.  There aren't that many of them, and they do get updated.
Changing Python's syntax will have longer-lasting consequences than
having to update some tools.