Guido's new method definition idea

[Carl Banks]

On Dec 6, 9:12 am, "Russ P." <Russ.Paie... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 6, 1:02 am, Antoine De Groote <anto... at vo.lu> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Allowing "$" as a substitute for "self" wouldn't require this new syntax.
>
> > class C:
> >     def method($, arg):
> >         $.value = arg
>
> > I'm strongly against this. This looks ugly and reminds me of Perl and
> > Ruby. (I don't have anything against these languages, but there's a
> > reason I use Python).
>
> > Russ P. wrote:
> > > On Dec 5, 6:21 pm, "Daniel Fetchinson" <fetchin... at googlemail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >> Hi folks,
>
> > >> The story of the explicit self in method definitions has been
> > >> discussed to death and we all know it will stay. However, Guido
> > >> himself acknowledged that an alternative syntax makes perfect sense
> > >> and having both (old and new) in a future version of python is a
> > >> possibility since it maintains backward compatibility. The alternative
> > >> syntax will be syntactic sugar for the old one. This blog post of his
> > >> is what I'm talking about:
>
> > >>http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-explicit-self-has-to-stay...
>
> > >> The proposal is to allow this:
>
> > >> class C:
> > >>     def self.method( arg ):
> > >>         self.value = arg
> > >>         return self.value
>
> > >> instead of this:
>
> > >> class C:
> > >>     def method( self, arg ):
> > >>         self.value = arg
> > >>         return self.value
>
> > >> I.e. explicit self stays only the syntax is slightly different and may
> > >> seem attractive to some. As pointed out by Guido classmethods would
> > >> work similarly:
>
> > >> class C:
> > >>     @classmethod
> > >>     def cls.method( arg ):
> > >>         cls.val = arg
> > >>         return cls.val
>
> > >> The fact that Guido says,
>
> > >> "Now, I'm not saying that I like this better than the status quo. But
> > >> I like it a lot better than [...] but it has the great advantage that
> > >> it is backward compatible, and can be evolved into a PEP with a
> > >> reference implementation without too much effort."
>
> > >> shows that the proposal is viable.
>
> > >> I'd like this new way of defining methods, what do you guys think?
> > >> Anyone ready for writing a PEP?
>
> > >> Cheers,
> > >> Daniel
>
> > >> --
> > >> Psss, psss, put it down! -http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown
>
> > > I like it.
>
> > > I'll even go a step further and suggest that "$" be allowed as a
> > > substitute for "self". It looks like a capital "S" (for Self), and it
> > > stands out clearly. It also makes code more succinct with no loss of
> > > readability. Think of the line wraps that could be avoided.
>
> It looks "ugly" simply because it is new to you. Once you get used to
> it, I'll bet it will look fine. And resemblance to another language is
> not a very good reason to reject it.

Perl is not new to me and I am familiar with the syntax, such as it
is.  I find it unspeakably ugly.  So, no, you would lose your bet if
it were me.


Carl Banks