functions, list, default parameters

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 06 Nov 2010 12:37:42 +0000, Mark Wooding wrote:

>> >         _missing = ['missing']
>>
>> A curious choice for the sentinel value. We're not using Python 1.5 any
>> longer
> 
> Two reasons.  Firstly, this comes from my Lisp background: making a list
> is the obvious way of producing an unforgeable object.  Secondly, if you
> see an objects that prints as ['missing'], you have a chance of working
> out where it came from; for a loose object() that's kind of hard without
> a wabbit hunter.

But surely you shouldn't expect to only have the repr() of the value to 
go by. You'll have a traceback, which shows you not just that you have a 
sentinel, but where it ended up.

It seems silly to me to fear seeing a bare object() more than all the 
other objects that give no context as to where they come from. If you see 
None, or [], or 1, out of context, you're going to have trouble working 
out what it's used for too. At least object() is rare -- it shouldn't be 
hard to do a search through the source code to find where it is created 
and from there find out where it is used.

To me, the idiom x = object() says "missing value" MORE strongly than the 
Lisp-ism x = ['missing']. After all, x = object() has no state, and no 
methods to speak of, what else could it be other than a sentinel? But 
['missing'] has state, it's mutable, it has methods up the whazoo. If you 
fear your code will expose it to the caller, why don't you fear that your 
code will mutate it to ['found now'], or something equally confounding?

The problem with the Lisp-ism is that the object ['missing'] could have 
many uses and could be modified. Without context, I'd be wondering 
whether I'd stumbled across a really short list of gerunds ("the missing 
kettle") or verbs. If you're writing code that does a lot of text 
processing, that won't be an outlandish thought.

If I had a lot of sentinels in the one module and for some bizarre reason 
couldn't re-use them, and so needed many different unique sentinels that 
needed to be distinguished, then I'd probably lean towards using ['the'] 
['Lisp'] ['idiom']. But for just one, I stick with my claim that object() 
says "missing" more strongly than ['missing'], strange as it may seem :)


-- 
Steven