[Python-Dev] New syntax for 'dynamic' attribute access

[glyph at divmod.com]

On 12 Feb, 11:19 pm, greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz wrote:
>Ben North wrote:
>
>> Generally gently positive, with the exception of Anthony Baxter's
>> "-1", which I understand to be motivated by concerns about newcomers to
>> the syntax
>
>The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning
>towards -1 as well. Adding syntax is a very big
>step, and it needs a very solid reason to jusify
>it. I don't see this filling a use case that's
>anywhere near common enough to reach that
>threshold.

I also strongly dislike every syntax that has thus far been proposed, but even if I loved them, there is just no motivating use-case.  New syntax is not going to make dynamic attribute access easier to understand, and it *is* going to cause even more version-compatibility headaches.

I really, really wish that every feature proposal for Python had to meet some burden of proof, or submit a cost/benefit analysis.  Who is this going to help?  How much is this going to help them?  "Who is this going to hurt" is easy, but should also be included for completeness - everyone who wants to be able to deploy new code on old Pythons.

I suspect this would kill 90% of "hey wouldn't this syntax be neat" proposals on day zero, and the ones that survived would be a lot more interesting to talk about.
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