On 17 February 2017 at 20:23, Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
I think it would be key, like async/await, to narrowly define the scope in which the word delayed functions as a keyword.
The PEP makes it clear that's just a transition phase: they will be turned into proper keywords in Python 3.7.
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0492/#id80
Python has had "pseudo-keywords" in the past, like "as":
[steve@ando ~]$ python2.5 -c "import math as as; print as" <module 'math' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload/math.so'>
and it is my understanding that the core developers dislike this sort of thing. As do I. You shouldn't count as getting the same special treament as async/await. Maybe you will, maybe you won't.
Very well put! Do you have any suggestions for doing something in the same vein? I think there's been a [...]
That will make it pretty much impossible to tell whether something is a delayed "thunk" or not, since *any* attempt to inspect it in any way will cause it to reify.
Maybe that's what we want.
In my mind, this is a plus. The only way to determine if something is delayed would be something that doesn't apply to anything else, so code never needs to be aware of delayed.
Earlier we talked about delayed *expressions* always generating the same value, now you're talking about *instances* rather than expressions. It makes sense to have keep the standard Python object semantics, rather than have the value of a delayed thunk cached by the textual expression that generated it.
You are totally right. I agree that the nomenclature is important, and I think we're on the same page. [...] Steve- I really appreciate the thoughtful feedback! Please let me know if you have suggestions; I don't expect the idea to be acceptable out-of-the-gate. :) -Joseph