[Python-ideas] What about allowing '?' in method names?

[Jesse Noller]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Masklinn<masklinn at masklinn.net> wrote:
> On 11 Aug 2009, at 21:09 , Georg Brandl wrote:
>>
>> Masklinn schrieb:
>>>
>>> On 11 Aug 2009, at 19:33 , Georg Brandl wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Masklinn schrieb:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 11 Aug 2009, at 15:25 , Arnaud Delobelle wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 11 Aug 2009, at 11:43, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>>>>> Steven D'Aprano <steve at ...> writes:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> What makes you think that the question mark is a clue-in that a
>>>>>>>> yes/no
>>>>>>>> answer is expected?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> AFAIK it is a widely-used convention in the Ruby world.
>>>>>>> I'd even go as far as saying that it's quite pretty, as a
>>>>>>> typographical
>>>>>>> convention (not that other Ruby conventions are :-))
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also in Scheme. (I think the question mark more or less replaces the
>>>>>> 'p' suffix used in LISP).
>>>>>
>>>>> It does, and Ruby's idea of using the "?" postfix for boolean query
>>>>> (instead of an `is` or `is_` prefix) comes from there.
>>>>
>>>> But, and I believe that was Steven's point, it is no more than a
>>>> convention.
>>>
>>> It isn't, any more than Python's `_` prefix convention, or its `self`
>>> argument for that matter. I'd heard the Python community was pretty
>>> big on smart conventions but I might be wrong.
>>
>> But what is the advantage of "?" to "is_" then?
>>
> I think it's easier to spot due to 1. being a fairly rare character in
> programs (in languages where the ?: ternary doesn't exist anyway) and 2.
> being at the end of the call (though on Python method the () operator makes
> that much less interesting, if you aren't using a property).
>
> is_ is less easy to spot as it's a pretty unremarkable sequence of
> characters and at the middle of the call/line.
>
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Isn't this discussion moot? Guido already took it out back and sent it
on it's way.

jesse