On Mon, Oct 27, 2003 at 07:11:16AM -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:
Hah. Another argument *against* rebinding by :=, and *for* a nonlocal declaration. With 'nonlocal n, m' in increment() (or however it's spelled :-) the intent is clear.
I dislike := very much. I think it will confuse newbies and thus be abused. While I dislike the global declaration, I don't feel strongly about changing or removing it. The best alternative I've seen that addresses nested scope and the global declaration. Is to borrow :: from C++: foo = DEFAULT_VALUES counter = 0 def reset_foo(): ::foo = DEFAULT_VALUES def inc_counter(): ::counter += 1 def outer(): counter = 5 def inner(): ::counter += outer::counter # increment global from outer outer::counter += 2 # increment outer counter The reasons why I like this approach: * each variable reference can be explicit when necessary * no separate declaration * concise, no wording issues like global * similarity between global and nested scopes (ie, ::foo is global, scope::foo is some outer scope) both the global and nested issues are handled at once * doesn't prevent augmented assignment * it reads well to me and the semantics are pretty clear (although that's highly subjective) Neal