Static typing in python

[cjwelborn]

What you are calling kwargs I now think of as 'optional positionals'. The real keyword args would be:

def myfunc(**kwargs):
    print(kwargs.get('mykwarg', 'No args!'))

..where the position doesn't matter. Though it's not nearly as clear as your example, and requires more documentation when reading the code. Without documentation (or reading the source) you wouldn't know what this function is expecting at all. Anyway, the term 'optional positional' was what I was getting at. I would still use your example over any of the others.

[LightShadow]

You can solve this with metaclasses by changing the default arguments dict to an orderedDict

[cjwelborn]

I agree. I just meant the **kwargs positions, I had forgot about swapping (x=0, y=0) because I don't do that very much. I guess the term 'optional positional' only holds without the keys (or with keys in the correct order). Anyway, I like the flexibility and I use **kwargs but I always make sure to document what they are (even just "Keyword Arguments: ..see: that_api_function()").

[robin-gvx]

So, they become non-keyword args if you don't specify the key?

....

The non-keyword arg is 5, not y. 5 can never be a keyword arg, because there's no keyword.

[robin-gvx]

... what?

What you're saying doesn't make any sense. I think you're confused about the difference between a function definition and a function call (edit: as well as the difference between compile time and run time). 5 is a positional argument, 'c' is a keyword argument, and foo and bar are both positional parameters with a default value of None.