python3: 'where' keyword

oren at REMOVETHIS1.hishome.net oren at REMOVETHIS1.hishome.net
Sat Jan 8 12:07:42 EST 2005


When I first saw this I thought: "hmmm... this seems as redundant as
adding a repeat/until loop to Python; there's no chance in hell it will
ever be accepted by the community or Guido, but I actually kinda like
it".  It's nice to see mostly positive reactions to this idea so far.

I think it's a really ingenious solution to the the anonymous function
problem - don't make it anonymous! A short, throwaway name with a very
localized scope is as good as a truly anonymous function and feels more
Pythonic to me. We thought we wanted a better syntax than lambda for
anonymous functions but Andrey shows that perhaps it wasn't what we
really need. What we need is a solution to quickly and cleanly generate
bits of callable code without polluting the containing namespace,
without having to think too hard about unique names and while making
their temporary and local nature clear from the context. Anonymity
isn't one of the requirements.

I really liked Nick Coghlan's property example. The names 'get' and
'set' are too short and generic to be used without a proper scope but
with this syntax they are just perfect.

Here's another example:

w = Widget(color=Red, onClick=onClick, onMouseOver=onMouseOver) where:
.   def onClick(event): do_this(event.x, event.y, foo)
.   def onMouseOver(event): someotherwidget.do_that()

The "onClick=onClick" part seems a bit redundant, right? So how about
this:

w = Widget(**kw) where:
.   color = Red
.   def onClick(event): do_this(event.x, event.y, blabla)
.   def onMouseOver(event): someotherwidget.do_that()
.   x, y = 100, 200
.   kw = locals()

I'm not really sure myself how much I like this. It has a certain charm
but also feels like abuse of the feature. Note that "w =
Widget(**locals()) where:" would produce the wrong result as it will
include all the values in the containing scope, not just those defined
in the where block. 

   Oren




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