[Python-Dev] PEP 447 (type.__getdescriptor__)

[Nick Coghlan]

On 25 July 2015 at 00:50, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
> Leave the decorator out like __new__, otherwise people are bound to forget
> it and have a hard time debugging why their code doesn't work.

I'd actually advocate for keeping this as a metaclass method, rather
than making it available to any type instance. The key thing to
consider for me is "What additional power does making it a method on
the class itself grant to mixin types?"

With PEP 487, the __init_subclass__ proposal only grants mixins the
power to implicitly run additional code when new subclasses are
defined. They have no additional ability to influence the behaviour of
the specific class adding the mixin into the inheritance hierarchy.

With PEP 447, as currently written, a mixin that wants to alter how
descriptors are looked up will be able to do so implicitly as long as
there are no other custom metaclasses in the picture. As soon as there
are *two* custom metaclasses involved, you'll get an error at
definition time and have to sort out how you want the metaclass
inheritance to work and have a chance to notice if there are two
competing __getdescriptor__ implementations.

However, if __getdescriptor__ moves to being a class method on object
rather than an instance method on type, then you'll lose that
assistance from the metaclass checker - if you have two classes in
your MRO with mutually incompatible __getdescriptor__ implementations,
you're likely to be in for a world of pain as you try to figure out
the source of any related bugs.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia