[Tutor] Decorators

Andrew D. Fant fant at pobox.com
Tue Apr 11 23:24:32 CEST 2006


Alan Gauld wrote:
>>Syntactic sugar *IS* a practical benefit. After all, every language above
>>assember is syntactic sugar, and by your definition of no practical use.
> 
> 
> Ah, but by that standard even assembler is syntactic sugar, now
> where are those hex codes and my keypunch? :-)
> 
> By practical use I mean adding function to the language.
> I agree decorators add a modicum of readability, but
> they also remove a large slice of Python's readability
> by introducing more line noise characters to the language,
> and that's a really bad feature from my perspective.
> 
*chomp* (sorry for introducing perl constructs here 8)
> Alan G

Alan,
  May I just say AMEN?  One of the reasons I started using python is that it was
the first programming language I had seen since Fortran that didn't make my eyes
cross from line noise characters stuck in among the text.  Has anyone ever
studied the effect of decorators on code readability?  Personally, I think that
if we want to add a bunch of unpronounceable characters to our code, we should
go back to using APL.  (for those who miss it, A+ is a fairly decent modern
update of the concept)  Now if you REALLY want to get funky.  try crossing lisp
with APL for a mathematically pure language that nobody can ever read.

Andy

-- 
Andrew Fant    | And when the night is cloudy    | This space to let
Molecular Geek | There is still a light          |----------------------
fant at pobox.com | That shines on me               | Disclaimer:  I don't
Boston, MA     | Shine until tomorrow, Let it be | even speak for myself



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