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An alternative approach to bound methods

Jeremy Hylton jeremy at alum.mit.edu
Tue Feb 20 12:11:16 EST 2001 
>>>>> "TC" == Tim Couper writes:

  TC> What we lose is the ability to access class attributes by
  TC> getting an attribute of an instance (in case they are not
  TC> functions, because you could not do it when they are functions
  TC> anyway). It's not a problem except compatibility. When scopes
  TC> nest, you can just refer to these names unqualified. You can
  TC> also refer to them qualified by the class name, which works as
  TC> now from any place where the class is accessible.

  TC> What do you think?

I'm not sure I really followed this argument.  Perhaps some code
examples would help.

The ability to access class attributes via self is pretty fundamental
property of Python.  I don't expect it will go away.

Also note that nested scopes do not allow access to class attributes
as unqualified names.  When resolving free variables, class scopes are
skipped.  This decision was made because we wanted to enforce the rule
that all access to class and instance data should be via self.

  TC> _________________

  TC> FWIW I think that this seems an excellent suggestion; for one, I
  TC> would find it a real asset to have such a seemingly python-esque
  TC> way of having class functions/static methods available in this
  TC> manner.  What is the procedure to bring this suggestion the the
  TC> powers-that-be?

Write a PEP.
http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/

Jeremy
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