Where the <>s indicate these special semantics.
The syntax bothers me, but launched an idea: How about separating parameter default value issues from instance specific definition time objects? def foo(a, b=4, c=None): local d = Bar([2,3,4]) ... The function code can decide if it wants to use c, provided by the caller, or d when no value for c is given. The developer may decide that None is not a good value for 'no value for c', but that's a design decision. You can do this now with: def foo(a, b=4, c=None): ... foo.func_dict['d'] = Bar([2,3,4]) But I would rather see this inside foo(), jamming variables into the func_dict bothers me too :-). The new keyword would work for classes, but be a functional noop: class Snorf: local eggs = 3 spam = 4 Joel