Another thread points at the github repo for my nascent check-attrs project <https://github.com/edreamleo/check_attrs>.
I am going to put this on hold, at least for now. The problem is that simply checking attribute chains isn't useful without a lot of other work, and that other work gets mighty close to full type checking, or its pattern-based equivalent. Instead, it would seem much more natural to use python's real type checker, mypy <http://mypy-lang.org/>. And studying mypy as I did with pyflakes may be in order, but perhaps not right away (see below). Having said this, I am pretty sure that there is room for a *design* checker, and that patterns, not type inference, are likely the way to specify the design. As an easy example, the pattern: self.c = Commander specifies what should be a universal *design* pattern for Leo's source code. This is, imo, very different from simply inferring that self.c is, in every case, a Commander. Do you see? The pattern specifies *intention*. The corresponding type inferences do not. Alas, this kind of simple insight quickly gets sucked down the rabbit hole of endless inference loops, where each inference depends on everything else. I had thought that patterns might cut the "Gordian Knot", but they seem, instead, merely to add lots of special cases without handling the general cases. Boo hoo. I have enough experience with inference engines to know that special cases *never* simplify matters, despite my intuitions. For this reason, I think it is worthwhile to study, or at least to *use*, real, general purpose inference, namely mypy. Happily, mypy can use stub files to short-circuit inferences in a general manner. My make-stub-files project <https://github.com/edreamleo/make-stub-files> meshes perfectly with this approach. I expect that experimenting with mypy will take only a day or three. Studying the mypy code is possible. If I do that, I might budget 2 or 3 weeks. However, I think there are enough important Leo bugs on the table that it would be good to fix them asap. Your comments, please, Amigos. Edward -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to leo-editor+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to leo-editor@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
