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Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:34:22 +0100
Subject: Re: Why no warnings when re-assigning builtin names?
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 1:58 AM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
>> My thoughts would be:
>> 1. =A0It's hard to avoid shadowing anything unless you know the entire
>> language and never forget things.
>
> Define the "entire language". Does that include the names of all the
> plethora of exceptions? How about the standard library?

The shadowing issue applies to the standard library as well as the
builtins, so yes; to avoid shadowing *anything*, you would have to
know the entire language. I posit that this is a practical
impossibility, and that unexpected shadowing will always be possible
(and won't always be prevented by syntax highlighting). Some day
you'll discover that you can't use module X because you have a
function called X, and you'll have to rename.

ChrisA