On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 10:08 AM Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:
One thing that the PEG parser makes possible in about 20 lines of code is something not entirely different from the old print statement. I have a prototype:
Python 3.10.0a0 (heads/print-statement-dirty:5ed19fcc1a, Jun 9 2020, 16:31:17)
print 2+2 4
But wait, there's more! The same syntax will make it possible to call *any* function:
len "abc" 3
Or any method:
import sys sys.getrefcount "abc" 24
A lot of people have been boo-hissing at this, but would it be possible to restrict it to just simple or dotted names (you mentioned that this part is possible), and only at the REPL? I can think of a lot of situations where I'd be doing something like:
len("93e8a1b2688b3fc0dc413c182273a14f5dbd39a23d7845d363c5f9b98283ecaaa7a642578afe55442b7a00ae4ce335c7" ... ) 96
and I'm having to remember to put that close parenthesis on it, and it doesn't up-arrow correctly, etc, etc. Would be convenient to use the space syntax there. It wouldn't be appropriate to use a __future__ import if it isn't intended to be brought in eventually, but the same kind of mechanism would be an effective way to introduce this (instead of magically recognizing a REPL, you just configure it to run the "from __alternate__ import no_parens_calls" statement). As a feature, it feels like the sort of thing that everyone's style guides would frown on, but it'd be very convenient for quickly scribbling stuff in the REPL. ChrisA