[Python-3000] defop ?

[Guido van Rossum]

On 11/22/06, Calvin Spealman <ironfroggy at gmail.com> wrote:
> This whole thing seems a bit off from start to finish. A seperate
> definition syntax with a special name/expression weirdo thingy, etc.

I have the same gut feelings but find it hard to explain why.

But I've learned to trust my gut -- eventually it will come to me.

Perhaps it's okay for the operation definitions to be outside the
class for which they apply? That at least clarifies that their
*invocation* also doesn't involve method notation.

> Anyway, we need something that handles this but isnt specific to this.
> There are other situations it may be useful. Essentially we want to
> have names that are known to be in some namespace, even within
> another. Does that make sense?
>
> Perhaps we could allow a special type of key in __dict__'s (and
> __slots__'s ?) that was more than a simple string name but included a
> namespace or context in which the name was to be understood. Even a
> simple 2-tuple would be enough. (operator, 'len') might be the entry
> for a method that the len builtin called, for example. A simple syntax
> would preceed the . operator to create names with this convention,
> maybe even using the familiar :: from other languages.
>
> class myclass(object):
>     def operator::len(self):
>         return self.length
>     ...
>
> Very simple, can have more uses than the single, limited use case
> being discussed.

Not sure I like this better. My spelling of "operator::XXX" is
"__XXX__" and I like that just fine -- no new syntax needed.

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