[Python-Dev] Re: Re: Decorators: vertical bar syntax

[Bob Ippolito]

On Aug 9, 2004, at 5:50 PM, Fernando Perez wrote:

> I feel like I've said as much as is reasonable on this topic, so I'll 
> probably
> shut up and wait for something to happen.  I'll then see if IPython 
> needs
> fixing to live in a post-decorators world or not, and work accordingly.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to just change the magic character that 
IPython (and maybe even Leo) uses from '@' to ':', '=', or '/'?   As 
far as I know, it's practically[1] never valid Python to start a line 
with any of these symbols (this list of not definitive, of course).  
'/' has the advantage, for IPython, that it's easy to type (no shift 
involved, at least on my US keyboard) and should be familiar to many 
people as a "command" character from IRC clients, searching in vim and 
less, etc.

[1] It can be done with a backslash line continuation or in a 
multi-line docstring, but I wouldn't really consider that the beginning 
of a line in the practical sense...

-bob