[Python-ideas] caching properties

[spir]

Le Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:55:41 -0700,
Daniel Fetchinson <fetchinson at googlemail.com> s'exprima ainsi:

> > It is clear and simple enough to write something like:
> >
> > @property
> > @cache  # or "once" if you prefer the Eiffel name
> > def value(self):
> >     pass
> >
> > Such a decorator could then be used on any appropriate function, not
> > just for properties.  
> 
> I agree, -1 on modifying @property and +1 on adding a new decorator to
> functools or some other module, maybe a collection of useful
> decorators.

While I regularly use caching/memoizing (e.g. for packrat parsing) and I like the idea of having it predefined in the language, now I wonder whether it's really worth it. Because usually it's a very simple thing to implement -- often two obvious lines of code -- and easy to understand, even for someone who does not know the principle yet.
E.g for a property getter:

def _getThing(...):
   if self._thing is not None:
      return self._thing
   <else compute thing>

(Also note that for a func you can cache on the func itself: func.cache -- but the 2-3 cases when I thought at that, it was rather a design issue with global vars.)

Maybe I'm missing the point?

Denis
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