[Python-3000] how about switching to a preprocessor? (Re: A better way to initialize PyTypeObject)

[Brett Cannon]

On 12/2/06, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
>
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> On Dec 2, 2006, at 3:58 PM, Neil Toronto wrote:
>
> > One potential problem with this idea is that you can't drop into C
> > code
> > without calling an external C function, which may not be acceptable in
> > some instances. Another is that if you want to analyze the performance
> > of your code, you at least have to *look* at the C code it generates,
> > which is a bit icky. I think that's pretty much going to happen no
> > matter what though, unless the preprocessor is only a very thin
> > wrapper
> > around C.
>
> We need to keep in mind things like debugging and code discovery
> (IDE, tags, grep), when talking about requiring the use of a
> preprocessor for extensions.  For an application like ours that is
> very heavily embedded/extended I'm concerned how difficult it will be
> debug, develop, and maintain these generated extensions.  Generated
> code can be a big time saver while you'r developing the code, but
> eventually you have to go digging into it, then it's always way more
> painful.


Right, but how much generated code are we talking about here?  There is
filling in the type struct, ParseTuple(), and the init function.  All of
that is boilerplate and not hard to get right in terms of auto-generation.
And it also would be easy to have it be very clean to read.  I know I am
personally in favour of exploring no more than the three steps listed above
and not going as far as a totally new syntax ala Pyrex.  We don't need a DSL
just for Python extensions.

I can understand this worry with something like Pyrex where you completely
change the syntax, but if we keep the "magic sauce" to the function
declaration line then the impact shouldn't be too bad.  This is especially
true with something that is only going to be a prefix chunk of code for
parsing arguments to your C code for methods and the auto-generated init
function.

-Brett
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