[Python-3000] PEP 3102 feedback

[Guido van Rossum]

On 5/23/06, Talin <talin at acm.org> wrote:
> Well, c.l.p was strangely quiet in response to my posting PEP 3102 a few
> days ago. Only two comments, one of a general "ick" variety that seems
> mainly based on personal bias, and another which likes the idea but
> votes a -1 on the 'naked star' syntax.

Lucky you. (If you want more negative feedback, I'd be happy to
volunteer as a co-author. :-)

> So in other words, nothing has really changed - most people seem to like
> the idea of keyword-only arguments, but find the 'required keyword
> arguments' syntax confusing. (I haven't found many people who were in
> favor of it, however Guido says that's the form that he prefers.)

Well, I'm at best +0 on it, but I haven't seen any proposal that I
like better (or even as well).

> A few people have complained about keyword-only arguments with no
> defaults, but my feeling is that these concerns are based on a mistaken
> understanding of how keyword arguments work. (Many people seem to
> conflate keyword arguments and default argument values, because they
> both use '=' and they both are required to come after positional arguments.)

Yeah, that confusion happens a lot, even here.

> What's the next step after this? One thing that's missing is a sample
> implementation. Unfortunately, its not quite as simple as hacking lambda
> or ASTs, this one affects code generation (AFAICT) and is not something
> I feel confident to do myself.

I suggest you give it a try anyway, and ask for help if you get stuck.
There are plenty of people who can help out, and you'l likely learn
something.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)