Yet another decorator proposal

Marco Aschwanden PPNTWIMBXFFC at spammotel.com
Wed Aug 11 02:06:33 EDT 2004


Here is yet another decorator proposal:

def sumSequencesLengths(var1, var2):
     """Computes something very important.

     __decorators__:
         staticmethod
     __parameters__:
         var1=Sequences
         var2=Sequences
     __returns__:
         int
     """
     result = len(var1) + len(var2)
     return result

Reasoning:
Decorators are important to communicate to the programmer. So, if someone 
wants to use decorators she better writes a documentation for it. So why 
not let the documentation enforce the whole decoration system?

The main advantages:
- Keeps the documentation up-to-date! The first language to do so (- 
doesn't it?)
- Enforces Python's readability further.
- Needs no new language constructs.


The main disadvantages:
- The values are frozen... the __decorators__ are set in a static string
- The definition follows after the def
- A "static" description has an impact on the "acting" program

There are really more pros and cons... it might be also only a 
"Schnapsidee" - after all I am no language designer.

Have a nice day,
Marco





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