[Python-Dev] defmacro (was: Anonymous blocks)

[Michael Chermside]

Jim Jewett writes:
> As best I can tell, the anonymous blocks are used to take
> care of boilerplate code without changing the scope -- exactly
> what macros are used for.

Folks, I think that Jim is onto something here.

I've been following this conversation, and it sounds to me as if we
are stumbling about in the dark, trying to feel our way toward something
very useful and powerful. I think Jim is right, what we're feeling our
way toward is macros.

The problem, of course, is that Guido (and others!) are on record as
being opposed to adding macros to Python. (Even "good" macros... think
lisp, not cpp.) I am not quite sure that I am convinced by the argument,
but let me see if I can present it:

  Allowing macros in Python would enable individual programmers or
  groups to easily invent their own "syntax". Eventually, there would
  develop a large number of different Python "dialects" (as some
  claim has happened in the Lisp community) each dependent on macros
  the others lack. The most important casualty would be Python's
  great *readability*.

(If this is a strawman argument, i.e. if you know of a better reason
for keeping macros OUT of Python please speak up. Like I said, I've
never been completely convinced of it myself.)

I think it would be useful if we approached it like this: either what
we want is the full power of macros (in which case the syntax we choose
should be guided by that choice), or we want LESS than the full power
of macros. If we want less, then HOW less?

In other words, rather than hearing what we'd like to be able to DO
with blocks, I'd like to hear what we want to PROHIBIT DOING with
blocks. I think this might be a fruitful way of thinking about the
problem which might make it easier to evaluate syntax suggestions. And
if the answer is that we want to prohibit nothing, then the right
solution is macros.

-- Michael Chermside