[Python-Dev] PEP 231, __findattr__()

[Martin v. Loewis]

> I'm not sure I understand what Moshe was proposing.  Moshe: are you
> saying that we should change the way the compiler works, so that it
> somehow recognizes this special case?  I'm not sure I like that
> approach.  I think I want something more runtime-y, but I'm not sure
> why (maybe just because I'm more comfortable mucking about in the
> run-time than in the compiler).

I guess you are also uncomfortable with the problem that the
compile-time analysis cannot "see" through levels of indirection.
E.g. if findattr as

   return self.compute_attribute(real_attribute)

then compile-time analysis could figure out to call compute_attribute
directly. However, that method may be implemented as 

  def compute_attribute(self,name):
    return self.mapping[name]

where the access to mapping could not be detected statically.

Regards,
Martin