On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 7:12 AM, Benjamin Peterson <benja...@python.org> wrote: > 2012/9/20 Mark Dickinson <dicki...@gmail.com>: >> Thoughts? > > I tried to define the error messages in terms of the callee's > signature. I call the formals that are not variadic, keyword variadic, > or keyword-only, positional. For example, in > > def f(a, b, c, *args, d): > pass > > a, b, and c are positional. Hence the "positional" in error messages.
No -- Mark's point is that (even given this syntax) you *could* pass them using keywords. I think Brett's got it right and we should just refer to a and b as 'arguments'. For d, we should use keyword arguments (or, in full, keyword-only arguments). That's enough of a distinction. Of course, in a specific call, we can continue to refer to positional and keyword arguments based on the actual syntax used in the call. Maybe this is also a good time to start distinguishing between arguments (what you pass, call syntax) and parameters (what the function receives, function definition syntax)? > As you noted in your next message, keyword-only arguments need to be > distinguished from these "positional" arguments somehow. Maybe it > helps to think of "positional" to mean "the only formals you can pass > to with position" (excepting variadic ones). > > I'm certainly open to suggestions. -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ 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
