[Python-Dev] Set the namespace free!

[Jesse Noller]

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 10:04 AM, Bartosz Tarnowski
<bartosz-tarnowski at zlotniki.pl> wrote:
>
> Hello, guys.
>
> Python has more and more reserved words over time. It becomes quite
> annoying, since you can not use variables and attributes of such names.
> Suppose I want to make an XML parser that reads a document and returns an
> object with attributes corresponding to XML element attributes:
>
>> elem = parse_xml("<element param='boo'/>")
>> print elem.param
> boo
>
> What should I do then, when the attribute is a reserver word? I could use
> trailing underscore, but this is quite ugly and introduces ambiguity.
>
>> elem = parse_xml("<element for='each'/>")
>> print elem.for_ #?????
>> elem = parse_xml("<element for_='each'/>")
>> print elem.for__ #?????
>
> My proposal: let's make a syntax change.
>
> Let all reserved words be preceded with some symbol, i.e. "!" (exclamation
> mark). This goes also for standard library global identifiers.
>
> !for boo in foo:
>    !if boo is !None:
>        !print(hoo)
>    !else:
>        !return !sorted(woo)
>
>
> This would allow the user to declare any identifier with any name:
>
> for = with(return) + try
>
> What do you think of it? It is a major change, but I think Python needs it.
>
> --
> haael
>

I'm not a fan of this - I'd much prefer[1] that we use the exclamation
point to determine scope:

foobar - local
!foobar - one up
!!foobar - higher than the last one
!!!foobar - even higher in scope

We could do the inverse as well; if you append ! you can push variable
down in scope.

Jesse


[1] I am not serious.