[Python-ideas] Accepting multiple mappings as positional arguments to create dicts

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 2:44 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 02:22:08PM +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> >     dict(d1, d2, d3)
>>
>> That's more readable than {**d1, **d2, **d3} ? Doesn't look materially
>> different to me.
>
> It does to me.
>
> On the one hand, we have a function call (okay, technically a type...)
> "dict()" that can be googled on, with three arguments; on the other
> hand, we have syntax that looks like a set {...} and contains the
> obscure ** prefix operator which is hard to google for.

True, you can google 'dict'. But the double-star operator is exactly
the same as is used in kwargs, and actually, I *can* search for it.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=python+**

Lots of results for kwargs, which is a good start. (DuckDuckGo is less
useful here, though it too is capable of searching for "**". It just
gives more results about exponentiation than about packing/unpacking.)
 The googleability argument may have been a killer a few years ago,
but search engines get smarter every day [1], and it's most definitely
possible to search for operators. Or at least some of them; Google and
DDG don't give me anything useful for "python @".

ChrisA

[1] and a search engine can help you find SmarterEveryDay, not that he
talks about Python