[Python-Dev] Re: Source-level backward compatibility requirements -logging and apply() - addendum

[Guido van Rossum]

> in my experience, you always lose your audience when you introduce the
> callable(*args, **kwargs) syntax, and you don't get them back until you
> explain that the notion is apply(callable, args, kwargs).

Maybe it depends on the audience?

In my experience (admitted it was a while ago), the desire to call a
function with arguments that are already given as an array often comes
to relative newbies who've never heard of apply in any other language
(isn't it a Lisp thing?).  Sometimes they even ask why

  a = (1, 2, 3)
  f(a)

isn't equivalent to

  f(1, 2, 3)

and telling them about

  f(*a)

usually makes them very happy.

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