On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:44:42 am Guido van Rossum wrote: > On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Barry Warsaw <ba...@python.org> wrote: > > On Jul 30, 2010, at 01:42 PM, Guido van Rossum wrote: > >>Well it is a reserved name so those packages that were setting it > >>should have known that they were using undefined behavior that > >> could change at any time. > > > > Shouldn't it be described here then? > > > > http://docs.python.org/reference/lexical_analysis.html#identifiers > > No, since it is covered here: > > http://docs.python.org/reference/lexical_analysis.html#reserved-class >es-of-identifiers
I have a small concern about the wording of that, specifically this: "System-defined names. These names are defined by the interpreter and its implementation (including the standard library); applications SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO DEFINE additional names using this convention. The set of names of this class defined by Python may be extended in future versions." [emphasis added] This implies to me that at some time in the future, Python may make it illegal to assign to any __*__ name apart from those in a list of "approved" methods. Is that the intention? I have always understood that if you create your own __*__ names, you risk clashing with a special method, but otherwise it is allowed, if disapproved off. I would not like to see it become forbidden. -- Steven D'Aprano _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com