On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:24:15 -0500, Steve Holden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] >You probably already know that sensible compiled language systems have >used constant folding since time immemorial, but Python has always >eschewed it. That's what comes of being a pragmatist's language: if such >optimizations really are required the programmer is expected to perform >them. Which make me wonder what plans there are for providing a better mechanism than default arguments as a way of initializing local function variables. Nested def's to create a closure with initialized values is pretty crufty for that, IMO. Maybe extending the default argument space with whatever comes after e.g. a triple star delimiter in the argument list, but which wouldn't be counted as part of the normal arguments? E.g.,
def foo(x, y=123, *args, **kw, *** i=1, deftime=time.ctime()): return x*y, kw.get('which_time')=='now' and time.ctime() or deftime Seem like a minor extension of the default-arg hack. Regards, Bengt Richter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list