On 04/20/2010 09:24 PM, Jim Fulton wrote:
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Fred Drake<fdrake@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 2:58 PM, Christian Theune<ct@gocept.com> wrote:
zope.testing uses the attribute '__bases__' to store the information what the base layers are. __*__ are supposedly Python internal attributes. Specifically __bases__ is known to be used to store information which base classes a class has.
This sort of misdirection has, unfortunately, a long history in Zope 3 (and the various things that's become). Witness __name__. (There are others, but most aren't *actually* used by Python implementations.)
Removing existing __*__ name ("underware") usage is probably untenable, but I hope we can avoid extending our foolishness.
OK, let's stop new uses of __*__ names. We won't provide initializers for classes, or implement operations either.
The use of protocols like __name__ and __bases__ is intended to conform to common usage in Python.
Let's invent new names that are specific to our own frameworks.
I can live with saying we shouldn't invent new __*__ names, even though I consider that a meta protocol. I get annoyed at criticism for following standard protocols.
I don't know (or at least can't remember) all of the history of the discussion about that, but I wouldn't argue about following standard protocols. I think the issue is with that it's not standard protocol the way we use it - at least I can't find our use of __bases__ documented in Python's documentation[1] about __bases__ and thus have a hard time saying we're following standard protocols. Christian [1] .. http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html?highlight=__bases__#class.__bas... -- Christian Theune · ct@gocept.com gocept gmbh & co. kg · forsterstraße 29 · 06112 halle (saale) · germany http://gocept.com · tel +49 345 1229889 0 · fax +49 345 1229889 1 Zope and Plone consulting and development