[Python-Dev] Set the namespace free!

[Georg Brandl]

Am 22.07.2010 15:04, schrieb Bartosz Tarnowski:
> 
> Hello, guys.
> 
> Python has more and more reserved words over time. It becomes quite annoying, 
> since you can not use variables and attributes of such names. Suppose I want to 
> make an XML parser that reads a document and returns an object with attributes 
> corresponding to XML element attributes:
> 
>  > elem = parse_xml("<element param='boo'/>")
>  > print elem.param
> boo
> 
> What should I do then, when the attribute is a reserver word? I could use 
> trailing underscore, but this is quite ugly and introduces ambiguity.
> 
>  > elem = parse_xml("<element for='each'/>")
>  > print elem.for_ #?????
>  > elem = parse_xml("<element for_='each'/>")
>  > print elem.for__ #?????
> 
> My proposal: let's make a syntax change.
> 
> Let all reserved words be preceded with some symbol, i.e. "!" (exclamation 
> mark). This goes also for standard library global identifiers.
> 
> !for boo in foo:
>      !if boo is !None:
>          !print(hoo)
>      !else:
>          !return !sorted(woo)

You raise a good point.  However, I'd rather explicitly signify names instead
of keywords:

for $boo in $foo:
    if $boo is $None:
        print($hoo)
    else:
        return sorted($woo)

That also has the advantage of introducing a measure of much needed
compatibility with industry-leading web programming languages.

Georg

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