[Python-Dev] Class decorators

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 03:09 PM 3/30/2006 +1200, Greg Ewing wrote:
>Well, here's how my use case would look if I had
>class decorators:
>
>    @IOClass
>    class MyClass:
>      ...
>
>Does that count? My decorator wouldn't need any
>arguments, because it looks inside the class for
>all the information it needs. [1]
>
>That's actually a general solution to Phillip's
>concern: the decorator can always look for attributes
>in the class (or the class's __dict__ if you don't
>want them inherited) for large amounts of information
>that wouldn't comfortably fit up the top. That's
>an extra degree of freedom that we don't have with
>functions.

I fail to see how this is an improvement.  It sounds like the worst of all 
possible worlds to me -- *much* worse than the status quo.

I use class decorators to declare metadata *about* attributes, so having to 
add a bunch of attributes for that *and* having to stick a funny hat on top 
of the class is definitely not an improvement for me.

Are you actually *using* this IOClass thing, or is this just a hypothetical 
proposal?