What could 'f(this:that=other):' mean?

[Jeff Shannon]

Jonathan Fine wrote:

> Giudo has suggested adding optional static typing to Python.
> (I hope suggested is the correct word.)
>   http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=85551
> 
> An example of the syntax he proposes is:
>  > def f(this:that=other):
>  >     print this
> 
> This means that f() has a 'this' parameter, of type 'that'.
> And 'other' is the default value.

Hm; so for a slightly more concrete example, one might have

     def fib_sequence(length:int=9):  ...


> I'm going to suggest a different use for a similar syntax.
> 
> In XML the syntax
>  >  <element this:that='other'>
> is used for name spaces.
> 
> Name spaces allow independent attributes to be applied to an
> element.  For example, 'fo' attributes for fonts and layout.
> XSLT is of course a big user of namespaces in XML.
> 
> Namespaces seems to be a key idea in allow independent
> applications to apply attributes to the same element.
> [...]
> Here's an example of how it might work.  With f as above:
>  > f(this:that='value')
> {'that': 'value'}

I fail to see how this is a significant advantage over simply using 
**kwargs.  It allows you to have multiple dictionaries instead of just 
one, that's all.  And as you point out, it's trivial to construct your 
own nested dicts.

Besides, Python already uses the concept of namespaces by mapping them 
to object attributes.  Module references are a namespace, exposed via 
the attribute-lookup mechanism.  This (IMO) fails the "there should be 
one (and preferably only one) obvious way to do things" test.  The 
functionality already exists, so having yet-another way to spell it 
will only result in more confusion.  (The fact that we're borrowing 
the spelling from XML does little to mollify that confusion.)


> 3.  Granted (2), perhaps function calls are first in the
> queue for syntactic sugar.

Huh?  How much simpler of syntax do you want for calling a function? 
I'm not sure what you'd want as "sugar" instead of funcname().

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International