Python evangelists unite!

[Alex Martelli]

<James_Althoff at i2.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.1007590449.2136.python-list at python.org...
    ...
> allow one to add instance-specific attributes.  But the Swing designers
did
> realize that people would need to do this kind of thing so they included a
> catchall hashtable in JComponent that clients can use to add
> (putClientProperty) and read (getClientProperty) "instance-specific"
> attributes.

...while some of the Windows API designers, many years before, given the
non-OO framing of that C-language API, had included SetProp, GetProp &c
calls in the Windows API... giving exactly the same overall ability.


> Generally, when you deal with user interface widgets (in a large GUI
> framework) a lot, you tend to see lots of cases where instance-specific
> attributes (both fields and methods) come in handy.

...and when you work in some other field, you miss them terriblym if
you're used to them from other realms and the framework doesn't provide
them... weren't "property lists" for arbitrary symbols supported as
far back as LISP 1.5?


Alex