PEP 255: Simple Generators

[Tim Peters]

[Carsten Geckeler]
> ...
> I just wanted to point out that "calling a class" (i.e.  creating an
> instance by calling class(args)) also returns an object, but that this
> is of course not a reason to define it with "def", because the way the
> definition is evaluated and what is returned is completly different as
> how a function definition is evaluated (as you pointed out).  And the
> same with generators.

If you're only interested in the first 100 nanoseconds of a generator's
life, that's true <wink>.  But when you write a generator, or analyze a
generator, or think about a generator, or step thru a generator in a
debugger (etc), they're just resumable functions; much like class methods
are just functions with a magical first argument.  We spell class methods
with "def" to emphasize the similarities; ditto for generators.  That
doesn't mean differences don't exist, but that the similarities are so deep
that harping on the differences is more distracting than helpful.