On Dec 1, 10:21 am, Raymond Hettinger <pyt...@rcn.com> wrote: > [Gregory Ewing] > > > >>I just posted to my blog about a feature that I'd like to see added to > > >>Python. > > > >>http://alphaios.blogspot.com/2009/11/python-string-inferred-names-wor... > > > I don't think getattr and setattr are used anywhere near > > frequently enough to justify special syntax. > > Perhaps that would change if we had the proposed syntax. > I would expect that powerful and expressive idioms would emerge.
I doubt it. Such expressive idioms haven't emerged in languages that do this (e.g., Javascript, Matlab) as far as I can tell. The objects end up being used as nothing more than a poor replacement for dictionaries. > > (A frequent question asked by newcomers from certain > > other kinds of languages is something like "How do I > > assign to a variable whose name is in another variable?" > > The answer is almost always "Don't do that, use a > > dictionary.") > > The proposed syntax works better with class namespaces > which automatically provide inheritance logic and > method binding. Dictionaries don't provide equivalent > support. The right approach to having "inheritance-like behavior" AND "typically don't know the name of the thing being accessed at compile time" in the same object--and I doubt that would be widely useful--is to add an option to dictionaries to support inheritance. Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
