[Python-3000] Sky pie: a "var" keyword

[Josiah Carlson]

"Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk" <qrczak at knm.org.pl> wrote:
> 
> Josiah Carlson <jcarlson at uci.edu> writes:
> 
> > From what I can tell, the only thing that your 'var' keyword does is
> > ambiguate the global vs. local case,
> 
> No, it can select between any of outer scopes.

No.  It can't select between *any* of the outer scopes, only those
scopes that have previously existing *names* that one wants to modify,
and really, only the deepest nested scope with a 'var' declaration.

It is no better, semantically, then just using a list.  In fact, by
virtue of breaking currently working code, and making it visually
ambiguous, it is worse.  As Jim Jewett stated, using a list "is at least
strange enough to warn people that they need to read carefully."


> It also allows to put globals in an array instead of a dictionary,
> making them as fast as locals.

No, it doesn't.

    import foo
    #foo.a didn't exist before
    foo.a = x
    #foo.a exists now

This kind of thing was stated in the earlier thread about making globals
as fast as locals.


 - Josiah