On Sun, Nov 05, 2017 at 07:18:30PM +0000, Steve Barnes wrote: > If a group of iterators were to be added to the typing module it would > be reasonably simple to automatically add and assert to any decorated > modules to ensure that such modules were always called with the > documented types.
"Iterators"? > I am thinking of decorators such as: > > - @typing.assert_params_mismatch - this would provide a wrapper that > had auto-generated asserts that all the parameters were of designated types. > - @typing.debug_assert_params_mismatch - this would provide a wrapper > that had auto-generated asserts that all the parameters were of > designated types only if a DEBUG environmental variable was set or similar. That's what assert does: assert only runs when __DEBUG__ is true. That's not controlled by an environment variable, but by the -O flag to the interpreter. So your assert_params_mismatch and debug_assert_params_mismatch are effectively the same thing. But using assert to check to perform argument checks is often an abuse of assert. To be more specific, using assert to check the value of public arguments in library code (where the arguments come from outside the library) is wrong, since you (the library author) cannot guarantee that your type tests will even run. Using asserts for argument checking inside application code is more of a grey area, with arguments for and against using assert. But in my opinion, the deciding factor is nearly always that an AssertionError is the wrong sort of exception. Outside of some fairly limited circumstances, most of which don't involve type-checking function arguments, using assert robs the caller of some useful information: the *kind* of error. (TypeError, ValueError, etc.) See here for further discussion: https://import-that.dreamwidth.org/676.html In general, I don't think we want to encourage such runtime type testing. Obviously there are exceptions -- library code should probably type check arguments, applications perhaps not -- and we're not exactly discouraging it either. There are already a number of third-party libraries that provide argument type tests at runtime, and I think that's probably the right place for them. [...] > I also think that this might increase the uptake of typing by giving > some clear benefits outside of documentation and static type checking. Problem is, the benefits of runtime type checking aren't clear. But the costs certainly are: if you want slow code, do lots and lots of runtime type checks. -- Steve _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
