Guido's new method definition idea

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

william tanksley a écrit :
> On Dec 5, 6:21 pm, "Daniel Fetchinson" <fetchin... at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
>> I'd like this new way of defining methods, what do you guys think?
>> Anyone ready for writing a PEP?
> 
> I think it's an awesome proposal. It's about time! With this change,
> defining methods uses the same special syntax hack that calling them
> does.

except that self doesn't exist when the method is defined. Or, should I 
say, when the function is defined - because that's really a function. It 
only becomes a method when looked up on the class (either directly or 
thru an instance), thanks to the descriptor protocol (hint : there's 
*no* "syntax hack" involved when calling inst.method - just partial 
evaluation). IOW : this def self.stuff thing only empeds correct 
understanding of Python's object model.

(snip)

> I see a lot of people are against it; I admit that it's not the status
> quo, but that's not a sufficient argument against a change (it defeats
> all possible changes). A more interesting argument against it is that
> it's special "implicit" syntax; but I would argue that it merely
> reflects the existing special syntax of method calls.

Once again, there's *nothing* like an "existing special syntax of method 
calls". Just the use of the descriptor protocol (the very same mechanism 
that's powers properties) and partial application. I've already 
described this more than once in details in this newsgroup FWIW.