On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> wrote:
One is to reproduce the behavior of defaulted parameters without having the name appear in the signature to produce *read-only* private locals, which amount to private define-time constants. This includes the int=int type speed hack. I think '*, _int=int', with adjustment of introspection, is sufficient. This make '_int' pragmatically constant, while still externally over-rideable for exceptional purposes such as testing or tracing.
Well, the references would be constant. The state itself could still be mutable, depending on the kinds of objects referred to. I agree this use case could be addressed by blessing the status quo and a couple of conventions.
The other is to introduce something new: private *read-write* closure (persistent) name-value pairs. I agree that such a new thing should not be in the param list between '(' and ')'.
It's not actually new as far as overall language capabilities go - since PEP 3104, you can get the functionality through appropriate use of an ordinary closure. It's really just about providing a slightly shorter syntax for a particular way of using closures. Well noted that not all proposals are addressing the same functionality, though. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia