On 3/3/06, Raymond Hettinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[Aahz] * As a writer/teacher, I want to be able to say, All Python special methods have leading and trailing double-underscore.Period, end of story.When teaching your classes, do you sense an aversion to using double underscore
methods in regular code?I sense an implied message that these methods are notintended to be called directly (i.e. the discomfort of typing x.__setitem__(k,v)serves as a cue to write x[k]=v instead; likewise, x.__int__() pushes towards
int(x) instead).If so, then that is a good reason to leave it.next() as-is.Unlike __setitem__or __int__, the next() method is intended to be called directly in normal code.Of course, for-loops are the most common case and it makes no difference there;
however, in the rest of the cases where the iterator is accessed directly, thecurrent naming is clean, readable, and doesn't provide an aversive cue.The double underscore convention is appropriate where the method is always
invoked magically in normal code and not called directly.The next() method isdifferenct because it is a mixed case, sometimes called magically and sometimescalled directly.In the latter case, the name is highly visible and therefore
should not have double underscores.I suspect that those who feel differently are ones who usually avoid callingnext() directly.That's okay, but we shouldn't muck-up the naming for the restof us who often do have a need to use next().
This is doubly important because we're now expanding the protocol to includesend() and throw().Adding underscores around them too will only make thosemethods look harder to use than they actually are.Don't underestimate the
psychological revulsion to calling code filled with piles of double underscores.
I think this is a really good point. next() is supposed to get used, by
coders, in regular code - so it shouldn't be __next__. I can understand
the desire for both forms, although that seems it would clutter things
up unnecessarily - particularly if the two do the same thing.
Anna
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