[Python-Dev] PEP 3102: Keyword-only arguments

[Terry Reedy]

"Talin" <talin at acm.org> wrote in message news:4453B025.3080100 at acm.org...
>
>         def sortwords(*wordlist, case_sensitive=False):

The rationale for this is pretty obvious.  But ...

>     The second syntactical change is to allow the argument name to
>     be omitted for a varargs argument:
>
>         def compare(a, b, *, key=None):
>             ...
>
>     The reasoning behind this change is as follows.  Imagine for a
>     moment a function which takes several positional arguments, as
>     well as a keyword argument:
>
>         def compare(a, b, key=None):
>             ...
>
>     Now, suppose you wanted to have 'key' be a keyword-only argument.

Why?  Why not let the user type the additional argument(s) without the 
parameter name?

tjr