[Python-Dev] new language ideas
Phillip J. Eby
pje at telecommunity.com
Sun Nov 2 22:54:32 EST 2003
At 08:27 PM 11/2/03 -0600, Brian Rzycki wrote:
>Multiline comments
>--------------------------
>#BEGIN
>..
>#END
>
>Everything in between is ignored. It would be very useful when debugging
>decent sized blocks of code. I know certain editors can auto-comment
>blocks, but it can be difficult to un-auto-comment said block. The same
>smart editors could colorize the block accordingly, minimizing readiblity
>issues.
Just triple quote. I usually use """ for actual strings in my programs,
and if I need to comment out a block I use '''.
>bit access of integers
>----------------------------
>Like strings, we can use [] to index into python integers. It'd be a nice
>way to set/read individual bits of a given integer. For example:
>
>x = 5
>x[0] = 0
>print x
>(prints 4)
>
>The details of how to index (I was assuming big-endian in this example)
>are open to discussion. This would make bit-banging in python be even
>easier than C (not to mention easier to read). This assumes we want
>Python to be good at bit-banging. ;)
Integers are immutable. What you want is a bit array; you could write one
of your own in Python easily enough, or C if you need higher
performance. Or maybe you could supply a patch for the Python 'array'
module to support a bit type.
>alternative base notation
>---------------------------------
>Python inherited C's notation for numbers of non-decimal bases. I propose
>another with simpler syntax: number_base. An example:
>
>x = 24b_16
>y = 1001_2
>z = 96zz_36
>
>The range for this notation would be 2 to 36 for the base. This allows
>for the entire alphabet plus numbers to be used as numerical
>placeholders. I'd be happy if _2, _8, _16 were the only ones implemented
>because those are the most commonly used.
Python already implements 8 and 16, using 0 and 0x prefixes. Presumably,
you're therefore requesting an 0b or some such. Note that you can already
do this like so:
>>> print int("100100",2)
36
However, if I were using bit strings a lot, I'd probably convert them to
integers or longs in hex form, just to keep the program more compact.
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