[Python-ideas] Should Python have user-defined constants?

[Chris Barker]

On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 3:31 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>
wrote:

<snip>


>  The
> interesting (but is it useful?) concept is constant identifiers which
> cannot be re-bound or re-assigned once they are set the first time.
>

This would actually be a substantial shift in what Python is about --
currently the concept of type is all about values, not names -- there are
various rules about scope, and they can be adjusted with global and
nonlocal, but it's only about scope -- a name is still a name, and can be
bound to any type of object, etc.

static languages, on the other hand often (always) assign type to the name
itself -- so adding constants and the like makes sense. But changing the
property of a name (this name can not be rebound) is a big shift in what
names are about in Python -- and I don't think a good one.

And what's the use-case, really? beyond the use case for all sorts of
static typing...

in case it's not obvious: -1

-CHB



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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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