Proposal: When an attribute lookup fails for an object, check the top-level (and local scope?) for a corresponding function or attribute and apply it as the called attribute if found, drop through to the exception otherwise. This is just syntactic sugar.
Example: a = [1,2,3] a.len() # -> fails, # -> finds len() in the top-level symbol table, # -> applies len(a) # -> 3 a.foobar() # -> fails, # -> no foobar() in scope, # -> raise NameError Benefits: - Uniform OO style. Top-levels can be hidden as attributes of data. Most of the top-level functions / constructors can be considered as attributes of the data; e.g., an int() representation of a string can be considered as _part_ of the semantics of the string (i.e., one _meaning_ of the string is an int representation); but doing it this way saves from storing the int (etc) data as part of the actual object. The trade-off is speed for space. - Ability to "add" attributes to built-in types (which is requested all the time!!) without having to sub-class a built-in type and initialize all instances as the sub-class. E.g., one can simply define flub() in the top-level (local?) namespace, and then use "blah".flub() as if the built-in str class provided flub(). - Backwards compatible; one can use the top-level functions when desired. No change to existing code required. - Seemingly trivial to implement (though I don't know much C). On attribute lookup failure, simply iterate the symbol table looking for a match, otherwise raise the exception (like current implementation). Drawbacks: - Could hide the fact that an extra (On?) lookup on the symbol table is necessary for attribute lookup failure. (Maybe there could be a switch/pragma to enable (or disable) the functionality?) - As above, attribute lookup failure requires an extra lookup on the symbol table, when normally it would fall through directly to exception. - ??? Disclaimer: I realize that very often what seems good to me, ends up being half- assed, backwards and generally bad. So I'd appreciate input on this proposition. Don't take it that I think the idea is wonderful and am trying to push it. I am just throwing it out there to see what may become of it. Regards, Jordan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
