[Python-Dev] PEP 457: Syntax For Positional-Only Parameters

[Ethan Furman]

On 10/08/2013 08:09 PM, Benjamin Peterson wrote:
> 2013/10/8 Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu>:
>> On 10/8/2013 9:31 PM, Benjamin Peterson wrote:
>>>
>>> 2013/10/8 Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org>:
>>>>
>>>> This PEP proposes a backwards-compatible syntax that should
>>>> permit implementing any builtin in pure Python code.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is rather too strong. You can certainly implement them; you just
>>> have to implement the argument parsing yourself. Python's
>>> call/signature syntax is already extremely expressive, and resolving
>>> call arguments to formal parameters is already a complicated (and
>>> slow) process. Implementing functions with such strange argument
>>> semantics is hardly common enough to justify the whole grouping syntax
>>> proposed in this PEP. -1 to that. I think I can live with "/", but
>>> YANGTNI still.
>>
>>
>> I am for having a way to succintly properly describe the signature of C in
>> the manual and docstrings and help output. As it is now, the only safe thing
>> to do, without trial and exception, is to assume positional only unless one
>> knows otherwise.
>
> Having a nice syntax for the docs is quite different from implementing
> it in the language.

It would be nice, however, to have it implemented at some point.

--
~Ethan~