[Python-ideas] What about allowing '?' in method names?

[Georg Brandl]

Masklinn schrieb:
> On 11 Aug 2009, at 15:25 , Arnaud Delobelle wrote:
>> On 11 Aug 2009, at 11:43, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>> Steven D'Aprano <steve at ...> writes:
>>>>
>>>> What makes you think that the question mark is a clue-in that a  
>>>> yes/no
>>>> answer is expected?
>>>
>>> AFAIK it is a widely-used convention in the Ruby world.
>>> I'd even go as far as saying that it's quite pretty, as a  
>>> typographical
>>> convention (not that other Ruby conventions are :-))
>>
>> Also in Scheme. (I think the question mark more or less replaces the  
>> 'p' suffix used in LISP).
> It does, and Ruby's idea of using the "?" postfix for boolean query  
> (instead of an `is` or `is_` prefix) comes from there.

But, and I believe that was Steven's point, it is no more than a convention.
Omitting the "is_" prefix makes for a "question" that isn't unambiguously
a yes/no question anymore in many cases.

Georg

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