On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 5:11 PM, Paul Sokolovsky pmiscml@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 4 Jun 2014 16:12:23 -0600 Eric Snow ericsnowcurrently@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, there is a "formal, implementation-independent language spec":
Opening that link in browser, pressing Ctrl+F and pasting your quote gives zero hits, so it's not exactly what you claim it to be. It's also pretty far from being formal (unambiguous, covering all choices, etc.) and comprehensive. Also, please point me at "conformance" section.
That said, all of us Pythoneers treat it as the best formal reference available, no news here.
It's not just the best formal reference. It's the official specification. I agree it is not so "formal" as other language specifications and it does not enumerate every facet of the language. However, underspecified parts are worth improving (as we've done with the import system portion in the last few years). Incidentally, the efforts of other Python implementors have often resulted in such improvements to the language reference. Those improvements typically come as a result of questions to this very list. :) That's essentially what this email thread is!
-eric