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

[Greg Ewing]

Michael Chermside wrote:

> 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.

I considered saying something like that about 3 posts ago,
but I was afraid of getting stoned for heresy...

>   ... 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*.

> 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.

 From that quote, it would seem what we want to do is prohibit
anything that would make code less readable. Or prohibit
anything that would permit creating a new dialect. Or something.

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,	   | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a	  |
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