Decorators not worth the effort

[Prasad, Ramit]

Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:

[snip]

> Ultimately, the goal is to have something like
> 
> @timeout(2)
> def doAction1
> 
> @timeout(4)
> def doAction2

[snip]

> Here's Steven example:
> 
> # Untested!
> def timeout(t=15):
>     # Decorator factory. Return a decorator to actually do the work.
>     if FPGA:
>         t *= 3
>     def decorator(func):
>         @functools.wraps(func)
>         def inner(self, timeout):
>             self.sendCmd("bootMe", timeout=t)
>         return inner
>     return decorator
> 
> I can assure you, that for some python users, it's is not easy to understand
> what it does, this function returning a function which returns another
> (wrapped) function. It requires some effort.
> 

I think it would help if it was renamed to set_timeout. And I would 
not expect the Python user to need to understand how it *works*, just 
to recognize what it *does* when it is used. I may not understand list's 
sort method internals (beyond the use of timsort), but I know how to 
use it to sort a list as I want. That is usually all I need.
 

For example, your colleagues just need to understand that the below
decorator is setting a timeout for the function.

@set_timeout(min=15)
def some_function():
    '''blah'''
      <code> 


One minor note, the style of decorator you are using loses the docstring
(at least) of the original function. I would add the @functools.wraps(func) 
decorator inside your decorator.

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