> What's the advantage of a mode switch? This seems perfectly clear to
> me without any sort of magical cutoff.

I agree with Chris. I'm not a fan of the original proposal with the "="
(because I don't think this is a problem that needs solving), but at
least it made more sense than a mode-switch among the list of parameters.

Eric

What's the advantage of a mode switch? This seems perfectly clear to
me without any sort of magical cutoff.

ChrisA

Here's a specific advantage I had in mind (it might not be considered very significant for many and that's ok): copying and pasting.

If I have a function I want to call, sometimes I'll often hyper-click through to the function and copy the signature instead of typing it all out.

I do this to save a little typing but also in large part so that I have the entire function signature right in front of me while I type out the function call, and that helps prevent little errors-- forgetting a parameter or calling one incorrectly, that sort of thing.

So if you had a function like this:

def f(a, b, *, c=None, d=None, e=None, f=None, g=None): ...

And wanted to call it like this:

f(a=a, b=b, c=c, g=g)

An easy way to reliably type the call is to copy the function signature, delete the parts you aren't going to use, and then type all of the "=a", "=b", etc parts.

A nice thing about the mode switch syntax could be that it makes this routine faster (assuming there are no type hints!!!):

f(*, a, b, c, g)

All you have to do is add the *, delete the parts you don't need, and you're done.

This is a small thing. But it got me excited about the proposed syntax.