On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 at 10:44, Rob Cliffe via Python-ideas <python-ideas@python.org> wrote:
Thank you for your proposal David. At last we have a counter-proposal to talk about. A few points:
(1) (As I pointed out in an earlier post) There is a flaw in using the syntax of an expression PRECEDED by a SOFT keyword: x = later -y With your proposal, x is assigned a deferred-evaluation-object which will be evaluated at some time later as "minus y", right? Erm, no. This is already legal syntax for x being immediately assigned a value of "later minus y". If you put the soft keyword *after* the expression: x = -y later it may or may not read as well (subjective) but AFAICS would work. Alternatively you could propose a hard keyword. Or a different syntax altogether.
Or just define that the soft keyword applies only if not followed by an operator. That way, "later -y" would be interpreted the same way it always has, and if you actually want a deferred of y's negation, you'd need to spell it some other way. Although I'm not entirely sure how, since the obvious choice, grouping parentheses, just makes it look like a function call instead, and "later 0-y" might not have the same semantics. ChrisA