Help me pick an API design (OO vs functional)

[Michael Herrmann]

On Tuesday, March 26, 2013 2:41:38 PM UTC+1, Mitya Sirenef wrote:
> ... 
> At the __exit__, further commands are no longer routed to that window;
> if it was a nested context, window is switched to the outer context,
> WHEN there are commands in it (i.e. on the first command). This seems
> pretty intuitive to me:
> 
> with notepad1:
>      ^S
>      with notepad2:
>          ^S
>      write('something')
> 

> ...
>  > What I am most afraid of: that the window that's currently the 
>  > context "disappears":
> 
>  >     notepad = start("Notepad")
>  >     with notepad:
>  >         press(ALT + TAB)
>  >         write("Am I in Notepad now?")
> 
> 
> Alt-tab needs to be handled by a wrapper function that gives you the
> object of the window you've switched to:
> 
> otherwin = alt_tab()
> with otherwin:
>      ...
> 
> If window is changed within 'with' block, the rest of block should be
> ignored. Perhaps there could also be a way to switch this behaviour off,
> for the entire script or for current block only.
> 
> 
>  > What do you think of designs #3 and #4?
>  > ...
> 
> These are ok, too, but I feel it's much easier to send commands to a
> wrong window vs. context managers. The same command in a different
> window can have vastly different and dangerous effect. In other python
> code that's generally not common at all, and would be bad style:
> 
> lst = lst1
> lst.append('x')
> del lst[3]
> lst.insert(0, 'a')
> lst = lst2
> del lst[2]
> lst.append('y')
> lst = lst3
> lst.insert(0, 'x')
> lst += [1,2]
> 
> I think current window should also be acquired explicitly:
> 
> with get_current_window():
>      type("some kind of snippet")
> 
> For usage when a command should apply to all types of windows.

I was skeptical of your suggestion at first but trying it out on an example script made me see its appeal:

	notepad_main = start("Notepad")
	with notepad_main:
		write("Hello World!")
		save_dialogue = press(CTRL + 's')
		with save_dialogue:
			write("test.txt", into="File name")
			click("Save")
		click("Close")

Forcing the library user to always use the "with ..." seems like overkill though. I think the gained precision does not justify this burden on the library user. Hm....