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Thu Jul 22 16:04:00 CEST 2010 · https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2010-July/102189.html

Hello, guys.

Python has more and more reserved words over time. It becomes quite annoying, 
since you can not use variables and attributes of such names. Suppose I want to 
make an XML parser that reads a document and returns an object with attributes 
corresponding to XML element attributes:

 > elem = parse_xml("<element param='boo'/>")
 > print elem.param
boo

What should I do then, when the attribute is a reserver word? I could use 
trailing underscore, but this is quite ugly and introduces ambiguity.

 > elem = parse_xml("<element for='each'/>")
 > print elem.for_ #?????
 > elem = parse_xml("<element for_='each'/>")
 > print elem.for__ #?????

My proposal: let's make a syntax change.

Let all reserved words be preceded with some symbol, i.e. "!" (exclamation 
mark). This goes also for standard library global identifiers.

!for boo in foo:
     !if boo is !None:
         !print(hoo)
     !else:
         !return !sorted(woo)

This would allow the user to declare any identifier with any name:

for = with(return) + try

What do you think of it? It is a major change, but I think Python needs it.

--
haael

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