Message: 1 Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:10:23 +0200 From: Simon Percivall <s.percivall@chello.se> Subject: Re: [Python-Dev] Re: PEP 318: Decorators last before colon
I've been following this discussion closely and I would like to voice my opinion. Please don't add any decorator syntax to Python, at least not yet. All of the proposals I have seen so far are, to be blunt, and in my opinion of course, ugly and are getting uglier as the discussion ensues. I see nothing wrong, at least for the present, with the status quo decorators that follow a function or class definition. They are explicit, functionally equivalent, use the existing and completely understandable syntax, and are so rarely used by only the *most* experienced and advanced programmers that violating the beauty of the language is unjustified.
I'm not sure <decorator> is the best solution but it sure is better than [decorator].
I think they're both bad, especially on the line preceding the definition.
Someone learning Python will probably be profoundly confused when seeing that special case.
I agree.
It also really feels like the decorators are decoupled from the function.
And to me they always were and always will be even with the help of syntax sugar. I can accept that, in the rarest cases that I need to use them. What's worse, if any of these proposals were to be accepted, I will have to go and look up the special syntax in those very rarest cases, instead of just spelling it the way that seems most natural to me, as a Python programmer.
The coupling between the decorators and the function would perhaps not appear to be greater with another syntax; but it would stand out.
Unlike docstrings which are used a lot and which documentation and books explain early on, decorators won't be used that much.
I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I would hate to see special syntax. -Michel