Make staticmethod objects callable?

[Nicolas Fleury]

Steven Bethard wrote:
> Nicolas Fleury wrote:
> 
>> I was wondering if it would make sense to make staticmethod objects 
>> callable, so that the following code would work:
>>
>> class A:
>>     @staticmethod
>>     def foo(): pass
>>     bar = foo()
> 
> Do you have a real-world use case?  I pretty much never use 
> staticmethods (preferring instead to use module-level functions) so I'm 
> having a hard time coming up with some code where this would be really 
> useful.  I'm also a little wary of breaking the parallel between 
> classmethod and staticmethod which are currently *just* descriptors 
> (without any other special functionality).

Well, IMHO, if staticmethod is worth being standard, than calling these 
static methods inside the class definition is worth being supported.  To 
be honest I don't use static methods like you, but users come see me 
asking "Why?" and I find their code logically structured so I conclude 
there's a usability problem here.

> Maybe instead of making just staticmethods callable, both staticmethods 
> and classmethods could gain an 'im_func' attribute like bound and 
> unbound methods have?

I don't like it either (__get__ can be called anyway).  My problem is 
the expectation of the user.  I wonder if it should just work.  Adding a 
few lines of code in staticmethod is worth it if it avoids all these 
questions over and over again, no?

Regards,
Nicolas