Guido is undecided on the syntax - he writes "I'm seriously considering doing it Java-style", but adds that he is totally swamped for the next two weeks. He finishes with: "Feel free to suggest this as a project for an adventurous python-dev'er though."
So, who's feeling adventurous? I'm convinced that this should go into 2.4 if possible, and I don't think there's any _technical_ risks (as far as implementation goes), the only problem is the syntax (and yes, that's a technical problem too, but you know what I mean).
Channelling Guido, via his EP keynote (http://www.python.org/doc/essays/ppt/euro2004/euro2004.ppt) I'm assuming that "Java-style" is something like:
@staticmethod def blah(args): body
@funcattrs(vegetable="blah", author="GvR") def blah2(args): body
Right on both counts.
It's not clear to me how you'd specify multiple decorators this way, perhaps Guido can give more details...
Easy: @staticmethod @funcattrs(vegetable="blag", author="GvR") def blah2(args): body I would love to see an implementation of this idea. One advantage mentioned by Fredrik Lundh of this, and also of my other favorite, over "decorators-after-args" is that the decorators are easily cut-and-pasted -- it's much easier to cut whole lines than sections of a line, and cutting a multiple-lines-spanning section is even worse. If people prefer my favorite (decorator-list-before-def, C# style) over Java-style, that's fine too... :-) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)