[Python-3000] PEP 3115: Actual use cases for odd metaclasses? Alternate syntax.

[Charles Merriam]

Sorry, if my Italian is non-existent.  Code is code however.

Could you verify that the article covers:

1.   Complaints that __metaclass__ will be silently ignored in PEP 3115.

My understanding from the last line of the Rational section is that
this is undecided.

2.  Complaints that, without _prepare_, the __new__ operation will not
know which order the items were declared, and that everyone will write
ordered hash implementations.

Though I propose that an array exist for the time analogous to the
current __new__ redirect.  One can look at the array as a hash with
very poor performance characteristics.  This should be acceptable for
the analogue.   After type.__init__() is actually called, only a hash
would survive.

3.  The metaclass can add additional class functions to support class
addition for on the fly creation of mixed in classes.

Though one could simply add these functions into the namespace during
the __new__ analogue.  My understanding is that type.__new__() will
not add new implementations if they exist in the namespace.  I may
well be wrong about type.__new__(), so please verify this yourself.

You have a legitimate counter-argument that grouping the
implementations of __add__ in the metaclass is cleaner than having
them stand alone and be referenced in.   Is this your argument?

Lost,

Charles






On Jan 13, 2008 9:58 AM, Michele Simionato <michele.simionato at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jan 13, 2008 9:37 AM, Charles Merriam <charles.merriam at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Well, I'm explicitly dropping this.   So far no one has pointed out
> > > any use cases that are not equivalent to intercepting an array of the
> > > namespace in the __init__() of a  subclass of type, then calling
> > > type's __init__() on the modified namespace.
>
> There are many use cases. For instance in
> http://stacktrace.it/articoli/2008/01/metaclassi-python-3000/
> I discuss operator overloading on records. The paper is in Italian,
> but you can  just look at
> the code and at the examples.
>
>     Michele Simionato
>