[Python-Dev] Very Strange Argument Handling Behavior

[Raymond Hettinger]

> On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Raymond Hettinger
> <raymond.hettinger at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>>> Guido van Rossum, 16.04.2010 16:33:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am fine with
>>>>> declaring dict({}, **{1:3}) illegal, since after all it is abuse of
>>>>> the ** mechanism.
>> 
>> ISTM that making it illegal costs cycles with giving any real benefit.
> 
> Diasagree. The real benefit is better cross-implementation portability.

Would hate for 100% of users will pay a performance penalty
when most applications aren't abusing keyword dictionaries 
so they already work cross-platfrom.

Isn't there anyway to make this a one-time check instead
of a PyLint style validation check running on every invocation
of a function or method using **kwds?

Or perhaps there can be a switch or flag to enable developers to
check for non-standard uses of **kwds.  That way, they can clean-up
their programs but not make the end users pay for the checks every time
they run an application that has already been cleaned-up.


Raymond