decorators

[John Henry]

I must be very thick. I keep reading about what decorators are and I
still don't have a good feel about it. See, for example:

http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/?p=564

and:

http://soiland.no/software/decorator

What exactly do I use decorators for?

[Paul McGuire]

Re: decorators

"John Henry" <john106henry@h otmail.comwrote in message
news:1163018240 .383103.183930@ b28g2000cwb.goo glegroups.com.. .

>I must be very thick. I keep reading about what decorators are and I
still don't have a good feel about it. See, for example:
>

http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/?p=564

>
and:
>

http://soiland.no/software/decorator

>
What exactly do I use decorators for?
>

John -

See if any of these examples give you some ideas on how you might use a
decorator: http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonDecoratorLibrary

-- Paul

[Carsten Haese]

Re: decorators

On Wed, 2006-11-08 at 12:37 -0800, John Henry wrote:

I must be very thick. I keep reading about what decorators are and I
still don't have a good feel about it. See, for example:
>

http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/?p=564

>
and:
>

http://soiland.no/software/decorator

>
What exactly do I use decorators for?

Decorators are a tool for executing common code when a function is
defined and/or when it's called. This reduces code duplication by
allowing you to factor out commonly performed steps.

If you find yourself writing different functions that share a lot of
setup/teardown code, or if you find yourself doing a lot of repetitive
housekeeping for each function you're defining, decorators eliminate
this duplication.

You've already been given a bunch of different examples, so I won't bore
you with more contrived examples. If none of the examples make you say
"wow, I could use this" and if you don't find yourself writing
repetitive setup/teardown/housekeeping code, you can probably live quite
comfortably without using decorators.

-Carsten

[Paddy]

Re: decorators


John Henry wrote:

I must be very thick. I keep reading about what decorators are and I
still don't have a good feel about it. See, for example:
>

http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/?p=564

>
and:
>

http://soiland.no/software/decorator

>
What exactly do I use decorators for?

Here's my learning experience on decorators:

http://paddy3118.blogspot.com/2006/05/python-function-attributes.html

especially:

http://paddy3118.blogspot.com/2006/05/function-attributes-assigned-by.html

[Paul McGuire]

Re: decorators

"Carsten Haese" <carsten@uniqsy s.comwrote in message
news:mailman.19 38.1163022175.1 1739.python-list@python.org ...

If none of the examples make you say
"wow, I could use this" and if you don't find yourself writing
repetitive setup/teardown/housekeeping code, you can probably live quite
comfortably without using decorators.
>

Amen! Don't force yourself to learn decorators if you don't need them at
the moment. Wait until you start repeating the same code (lock/unlock,
dbready/dbcommit, logstart/logend, etc.) around multiple functions, then go
back and try applying a decorator to simplify the job. Having a real use
for them will make it much easier to "get".

I will say, though, that I found the memoizing decorator to be especially
intriguing and eye-opening, and didn't realize I needed it until I saw it
laid out in front of me.

-- Paul