> I have a great idea, there are __iX__` methods, such as `__ior__`,
> `__iadd__`, `__iand__` etc.., which implements the |=, +=, &=
> behavior,
> it would be nice if you could implement also `__igetattr__` or
> something, which means:
>
> instead of
> con = "some text here"
> con = con.replace("here", "there")
>
> we could do
>
> con = "some text here"
> con .= replace("here", "there")I have three concerns about this. First, there's a lot of wizardry under the covers with getattr() and dot access to begin with, so this would be significantly non-trivial. I suspect the behavior would wind up being "surprising" too often. Second, explicit is better than implicit. It's better to explicitly rebind the name (or mutate on the name) rather than have a fancy shorthand for trampling over an existing mutable value. In the case of the compound operators on numbers, you're dealing with immutable types anyway, so you're really just rebinding the name. The same is true of your string there. But what about a list? spam = [1, 2, 3] eggs = spam eggs .= append(4) # what is happening???? eggs .= sort() # how about now? eggs .= sorted(eggs) # and now? You see? It's going to be a lot of surprises, because you're stripping the usual visual cues of explicit assignment: spam = [1, 2, 3] eggs = spam eggs.append(4) # mutating spam too eggs.sort() # mutating spam too eggs = eggs.sorted() # rebinding eggs to a new value, spam is safe Yes, yes, I know, you could "get used to it", but it's adding complexity and detracting from the One Obvious Way to do things. If an object decides to implement those compound operators and abuse them thusly, that's a consenting adults situation. Introducing this new syntax into the language creates a trip hazard for the user. Third, that proposed operator, .= owwwwww that's hard to see. It looks like a typo, and could easily be typed as one, or overlooked altogether (again, surprises). Explicit-is-better-than-implicit'ly yrs, -- Jason C. McDonald (CodeMouse92) Author | Speaker | Hacker | Time Lord
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