Decorator keyword

[Steven Bethard]

I mentioned in a previous post that I'd much prefer some sort of
keyword as a decorator indication than a character like @ (or the
recently suggested |).  A promising note on python-dev:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-August/047001.html
> Perhaps this could be addressed by requiring "from __future__ import
> decorators", for one release, just like was done for "yield".  I
> expect that this would be acceptable to the ObjC folks, too.  It
> wouldn't be my favorite, but I won't rule it out just because of the
> new keyword (and yes, this is a softening of my position on new
> keywords).
> 
> --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

I was just going to let this go because I thought it had been shut
down, but as it seems to have been reopened, I'd love to see something
like:

with classmethod
with returns(int)
def func(*args, **kwds):
    return 1

Or if you don't like so many lines:

with [classmethod, returns(int)]
def func(*args, **kwds):
    return 1

Or perhaps, if you like to see the def by itself:

def func(*args, **kwds) with [classmethod, returns(int)]:
    return 1

Really, I'd be much happier with any of these than any of the solely
symbol-based versions.  Neither [] alone after a function def or '@'
before one reads clearly to me as an indicator of decoratorhood.

I've always liked that Python tries to be human-readable (e.g. "for x
in lst" reads almost like English).  If at all possible, I'd like
decorators to be the same way.  In fact, while I've only used 'with'
above (because it was non-'as' keyword suggestion in the wiki), I'd be
just as happy (maybe happier) with 'decorate' or 'deco' or something
along those lines that would read even easier.

Steve