PEP 318: Can't we all just get along?

[Paul Morrow]

Dan Sommers wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:13:47 -0400,
> Paul Morrow <pm_mon at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>First though, I still believe that we should exploit existing
>>conventions (recommended coding practices) as a way of getting 'free'
>>declarations for class, static, and instance methods (e.g. methods
>>whose first param is 'self' are instance methods, etc.). That feels
>>very pythonic to me, just as we use naming conventions to distinguish
>>public, private, and semi-private methods.
> 
> 
> I don't understand how assigning semantic significance to a "recommended
> coding practice" is Pythonic.
> 
> In the face of ambiguity, refuse to guess.
> 
> Explicit is better than implicit.
> 

Good conventions prevent ambiguity.

    class Foo:
       def method1(self, a, b): pass       # clearly an instance method
       def method2(cls, a, b): pass        # clearly a class method
       def method3(a, b): pass             # clearly a static method


When declarations conflict with conventions, it makes us wonder what the 
author really intended.

       def staticmethod setX(self, x):
           self.x = x

 >
 > I think that the idea that started this thread is just right:
 >

You're right, this thread is about decorators, not about more 
opportunities for dynamic typing.  I just wanted to remind us that 
decorators are a lot like static typing, which isn't terribly pythonic.