[Python-ideas] between block and function [was: Custom Code Folding: Standardized Rules and Syntax?]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 09:13:11PM -0400, Jim J. Jewett wrote:
> There have been times when I wanted to group portions of a module,
> class, or function.  Giving names to each of those groupings would be
> useful, and would be appropriate for python-level changes.

I don't know about grouping parts of a class or function, but I've 
certainly often wanted something in between the single file module and 
the multiple file package.

As far as grouping parts of a class, we already have ways to do that:

- parts of a class are called "methods" :-)

- more usefully, you can use mixins (or traits) and multiple 
  inheritence to separate related code into their own class

- or forego inheritence at all and use composition.

For functions, I think that if you need to group parts of a function, 
your function is probably too big. If not, you can use nested functions 
(although they're not as useful as they might be) or refactor.


But your third suggestion would be useful to me. I'd really like to 
follow the Zen:

    Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

and have a namespace data structure that was functionally like a module 
but didn't need to be separated out into another file.

A sketch of syntax:

namespace Spam:
    # introduces a new block
    x = 1

    def function(a):
        return a + x

    class K:
        ...


assert Spam.x == 1
x = 99
assert Spam.function(100) == 101  # not 199


Name resolution inside Spam.function would go:

locals -> nonlocals -> namespace -> module globals -> builtins


I've played around with using a class statement (to get the indented 
block) and a decorator to create a namespace. The namespace itself is 
easy: I just subclass types.ModuleType, and inject names into that. The 
hard part is changing the functions to search their enclosing namespace 
first, before searching the module globals.


If we had such a construct, then code folding would be given. If we used 
the existing "class" keyword, then any editor which can fold classes 
would automatically work. If we introduced a new keyword, then there 
would be a delay until editors gained support for that new keyword, but 
eventually the better editors would support code folding them.



-- 
Steve