[Python-ideas] global and nonlocal with atributes

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 9:10 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> But the OP's proposal is specifically to allow the global and nonlocal
> keywords to appear in places where currently expressions can appear, as well
> as still appearing as statements, which implies that they behave almost but
> not quite like objects without actually being objects. That's the sort of
> nonsense that you get in PHP, where there are things that look like
> functions or operators, like list() and (int), but are actually magic
> handled by the parser.

Fair enough. And I absolutely agree about the PHP mess, that's not
something to desire by any means.

Maybe my modified suggestion has an alternative use, though. Is there
value in having a token that refers to the current module? Every
language has a way for class methods/instance methods/whatever you
call them/etc to reference the current object instance, even if
attribute lookup is implicit - eg C++ with 'this':

foo &foo::do_something()
{
    abcd += 3;
    return *this;
}

Needing to reference your own module isn't common, but it would allow
you to look up your own constants via calculated names, for instance,
so maybe there's value in it. Or maybe not, I dunno.

ChrisA