Python 3.0 migration plans?

[Diez B. Roggisch]

TheFlyingDutchman wrote:

> 
>>
>> The fact that you compare and criticise the simple annotations like
>> static or abstract with the much more powerful decorator concept shows
>> that, despite being the maintainer of a
>> soon-to-be-ruling-the-python-world Python 3 fork, lack understanding of
>> even the most basic language features. Which isn't exactly news.[1]
> 
> Don't you mean "lack appreciation for the non-basic language
> features"? static, class and abstract
> are basic language features that I appreciate. "decorators" have been
> in Python for only a small part of its existence, they aren't in the
> vast majority of languages (if any other language even has them) which
> means people write all kinds of software without them. Or rather, most
> of the software ever written didn't use decorators. Doesn't sound
> basic at all.

People did write all kinds of software in Assembler. And large portions of
these people complained about every feature that some new language
introduced.

All serious languages are turing-complete. So can we put away with this
non-sense argument right away, please?

>>
>> Maybe you should start using python more and _then_ start discussions
>> about it's features, when you have good grounds and can provide viable
>> alternatives? But I guess that's a wish that won't be granted....
> 
> static and abstract keywords would seem to be very viable
> alternatives. Viable enough that several language designers used them.

As I said - you don't get it. The decorators (in conjunction with the
descriptor protocol - ever heard of that?) are very powerful yet lead as an
artifact to simple, declarative implementations of features you like,
namely static and abstract methods. 

And as you seem being so reluctant to let new features creep into the
language, the introduction of new keywords you like?

Besides, those 'several language designers' seem to think that the
introduction of keywords isn't enough, but a general purpose annotation
scheme seems to be viable - or how do you explain e.g. JDK 1.5 Annotations?

Diez