[Python-ideas] Operator as first class citizens -- like in scala -- or yet another new operator?

[Ricky Teachey]

>
> In structure design ... and especially when you design a hardware that
> is meant to be automatically converted into verilog or even logic
> gates, I personally would really want to have a one-to-one
> relationship of the python-objects vs the actual hardware structures.
> The granularity is at signal/bit level. This is why I really think
> giving a special assignment in python which users could override is
> really helpful, rather than having to have this kind of special case:
> if you do "self.abc = thing" descriptor mechanism is invoked, but the
> very next line if you do "abc = thing" ... nothing will happen. This
> special case can be completely removed and having a much better
> conceptual consistency if the "<==" assignment operator always behaves
> the same, doesn't matter if it is "self.abc <== thing" or "abc <==
> thing".
>

This seems like a hurdle you're going to have trouble passing... especially
given that all the functionality that is required can be provided using
existing descriptor behavior. You will need to pretty concretely
demonstrate why the special handling of signals in assignment (no matter
which operator is the operator of choice) is something the language at
large really needs, and why descriptors aren't sufficient.

And to be honest, working with a SignalDescriptor class seems like the most
explicit and readable approach anyway, given that your stated first
preference is to customize/"overload" the assignment operator. Python
already provides nearly the exact syntax you want, you are just limited to
confining it to your own Signal and SignalDescriptor objects.

Comparing this idea to adding a matrix operator: in the latter case, even
if you created a Matrix class and customized __mul__ behavior, there were
still two competing definitions for how multiplication can occur. So that
couldn't be solved through customized classes. In this current case, the
problem CAN be solved by pairing a customized Signal and SignalDescriptor.
Unless you can demonstrate exactly why that this isn't a workable solution,
I think you can expect it to be very difficult to get the buy-in you need.
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