[Python-Dev] Making staticmethod objects callable?

[Nicolas Fleury]

Steven Bethard wrote:
> My only (mild) concern is that if staticmethod is going to get a
> __call__, I think classmethod should probably get one too.  Inside a
> class this doesn't make much sense:

I agree, make sense or not, if "@staticmethod def foo()" and a simple 
"def foo(self)" can all be called inside class definition, "@classmethod 
def foo(cls)" should too.

> Anyway, my feeling was that running into this behavior (that
> staticmethod is not callable) is a good oportunity to explain how
> descriptors work.  And once you start playing around with staticmethod
> and classmethod, you're going to need to learn that pretty soon
> anyway.  Hiding it a little bit longer with a __call__ method on
> staticmethod isn't going to help much in the long run.

The problem is that even after explaining descriptors (which IMHO can be 
a more advanced feature for newbies), you still need a workaround and 
you might end up with (or call __get__):

class A:
     def foo(): pass
     bar = foo()
     foo = staticmethod(foo)

Which I find sad considering all the energy debating @decorators;)

Regards,
Nicolas