[Python-ideas] Infix application of binary functions

[Chris Rebert]

> On 07/22/2010 01:17 AM, Chris Rebert wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Dag Odenhall<dag.odenhall at gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>> It could help readability if binary (arity of 2) functions could be
>>> applied infix with some syntax. For example, borrowing from Haskell, the
>>> backtick could be reintroduced for this purpose.
>>>
>>> Good examples for this are isinstance and hasattr:
>>>
>>>    if some_object `isinstance` Iterable:
>>>        ...
>>>    elif some_object `hasattr` '__iter__':
>>
>> Already proposed (by me) and rejected by the BDFL:
>>
>> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2007-January/000054.html
>>
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Mathias Panzenböck
<grosser.meister.morti at gmx.net> wrote:
> Then what about:
<snip>
>        obj *isinstance Iterable

How would the parser distinguish that from multiplication?

> or
>        obj isinstance? Iterable

That would look odd for non-interoggative binary functions:
    z = x cartesianProduct? y

> These don't use the backtick charackter (wich on some setups even is a
> unicode char not from 7bit ascii).

Not using backtick definitely makes the proposal more viable.
(Personally I <3 backtick though.)

Cheers,
Chris