[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 318: Decorators last before colon

[Michel Pelletier]

On Wed, 2004-03-31 at 12:04, Bob Ippolito wrote:
> On Mar 31, 2004, at 1:59 PM, Michel Pelletier wrote:
> 
> >> Message: 1
> >> Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:10:23 +0200
> >> From: Simon Percivall <s.percivall at chello.se>
> >> Subject: Re: [Python-Dev] Re: PEP 318: Decorators last before colon
> >
> > I've been following this discussion closely and I would like to voice  
> > my
> > opinion.
> >
> > Please don't add any decorator syntax to Python, at least not yet.  All
> > of the proposals I have seen so far are, to be blunt, and in my opinion
> > of course, ugly and are getting uglier as the discussion ensues.
> >
> > I see nothing wrong, at least for the present, with the status quo
> > decorators that follow a function or class definition.  They are
> > explicit, functionally equivalent, use the existing and completely
> > understandable syntax, and are so rarely used by only the *most*
> > experienced and advanced programmers that violating the beauty of the
> > language is unjustified.
> 
> I've been pretty quiet about this lately because the discussions have  
> gone into space, largely by people who don't even have a need or desire  
> for decorators, but uninformed comments like this just irk me.

Well like the post says, it's just my opinion.

> Decorators *are not rare* and are *used by regular programmers* in some  
> problem domains.  Yes, it takes an advanced programmer to write such a  
> framework, but that doesn't mean that the syntax is useless to  
> non-advanced programmers.

I didn't say useless, I said rarely used.  I wouldn't imagine anyone
here discussing syntax that was useless.

> Please understand that just because you haven't need them yet doesn't  
> make them worthless, ugly, etc.

I didn't say worthless either.

>   It has nothing to do with being an  
> experienced or advanced programmer, some problem domains simply REQUIRE  
> decorated functions in order to work at all. 

I disagree, but I agree that there exist problem domains for which
decorators would make it *easier*.  Are satisfying these problem domains
worth new syntax?

-Michel