> I think this is a very natural looking use case, and is not as well addressed by putting the multiplier outside the indexing. Imagine you have two arrays that store lengths, but not necessarily in the same units. Whatever the underlying representation, we would be able to ask, e.g.:
>
> a[1, 2, unit="furlongs"] == b[1, 2, unit="furlongs"]
I don't find such examples a conclusive argument in favour of this
syntax at all. Anything that stored a length and could do conversions
in this way would presumably need to be some kind of length object
that was able to handle conversions.
My comment was not remotely meant to be "the conclusive argument." If you read the PEP, or the 500 prior discussion messages that Guido references, you can see much more.
My comment was simply about a corner case, and the phrasing of one paragraph in the PEP. One of the PEP authors said he thought that usage was a misuse, and I claimed that I think it would be a good and appropriate use for the syntax. Not the only use. Not the primary one. And obviously not the only possible way to deal with units (although I think it WOULD be somewhat more natural than the other approaches you mention in your comment).
However, right now it's obviously a purely hypothetical library that would do that. Possibly someone would create such an API if the syntax is added, but quite possibly not as well.
The dead increasingly dominate and strangle both the living and the
not-yet born. Vampiric capital and undead corporate persons abuse
the lives and control the thoughts of homo faber. Ideas, once born,
become abortifacients against new conceptions.