[Python-Dev] PyPy, Jython, & IronPython: Enum convenience function and pickleablity

[Georg Brandl]

Am 02.05.2013 23:57, schrieb Eli Bendersky:
>> Eli, it would be nice if you stopped with this claim.
> 
> 
>     I'm not advocating "not having a convenience syntax", I'm advocating
>     having a convenience syntax which is *class-based* rather than
>     function-based.
> 
>     Debuggers are beside the point: there are two kinds of "convenience
>     syntax" on the table; one allows pickling by construction, one
>     requires an ugly hack which may not solve all cases (and which may
>     apparently make Jython / IronPython mildly unhappy). Why you insist
>     on ignoring the former and imposing the latter is beyond me.
> 
> 
> I'm not trying to belittle our class-based suggestion. I just think there are
> two separate issues here, and I was focusing on just one of them for now. The
> one I've been focusing on is how to make the function-based convenience syntax
> work with pickling in the vast majority of interesting cases. This appears to be
> possible by using the same pattern used by namedtuple, and even better by
> encapsulating this pattern formally in stdlib so it stops being a hack (and may
> actually be useful for other code too).
> 
> The other issue is your proposal to have a class-based convenience syntax akin
> to (correct me if I got this wrong):
> 
> class Animal(Enum):
>   __values__ = 'cat dog'
> 
> This is obviously a matter of preference (and hence bikeshedding), but this
> still looks better to me:
> 
> Animal = Enum('Animal', 'cat dog')
> 
> It has two advantages:
> 
> 1. Shorter
> 2. Parallels namedtuple, which is by now a well known and widely used construct

Not to forget 3. Has to specify the class name twice for good measure ;)

Georg