Hello, guys.
Python has more and more reserved words over time. It becomes quite annoying,
since you can not use variables and attributes of such names. Suppose I want to
make an XML parser that reads a document and returns an object with attributes
corresponding to XML element attributes:
> elem = parse_xml("<element param='boo'/>")
> print elem.param
boo
What should I do then, when the attribute is a reserver word? I could use
trailing underscore, but this is quite ugly and introduces ambiguity.
> elem = parse_xml("<element for='each'/>")
> print elem.for_ #?????
> elem = parse_xml("<element for_='each'/>")
> print elem.for__ #?????
My proposal: let's make a syntax change.
Let all reserved words be preceded with some symbol, i.e. "!" (exclamation
mark). This goes also for standard library global identifiers.
!for boo in foo:
!if boo is !None:
!print(hoo)
!else:
!return !sorted(woo)
This would allow the user to declare any identifier with any name:
for = with(return) + try
What do you think of it? It is a major change, but I think Python needs it.
--
haael
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