Are decorators really that different from metaclasses...

[Steven Bethard]

Paul Morrow <pm_mon <at> yahoo.com> writes:
> Steven Bethard wrote:
> > Are you trying to say that "metadata" is the same thing as "operator 
shortcut"?
> 
> Not exactly, but it would include defining those.

Ahh.  Well I at least sort of see where you're going with this now, thanks.

It's probably notable that I could write my example in two ways:

class Identity:
    def get(self, x):
        return x
    __getitem__ = get

class Identity:
    def __getitem__(self, x):
        return x
    get = __getitem__

I think I could agree that the use of things like __getitem__ can indicate 
some metadata about the class, but I'd note that that is not all they do.  In 
the example here, __getitem__ defines a function that can be used like any 
other function.  At the same time, because it's *named* __getitem__, we get 
some metadata about the function.

Using the same logic, I should expect that in something like:

def baz():
    __foo__ = "bar"
    # body of baz

__foo__ would be a string, and could be used like any other string.  At the 
same time, because it was *named* __foo__, we would get some metadata about 
the string.

So I guess my point is that, while the *name* might give us some metadata, I'm 
not convinced that the *use* is in any sense metadata.

STeve