[Python-ideas] Special-case 3.x 'print x' SyntaxError

[Terry Reedy]

One of the problems with new Python programmers using 3.x is that they 
first read 'print x' in 2.x based material, try 'print x' in 3.x, get 
"SyntaxError: invalid syntax" (note the uninformative redundant 
message), and go "huh?" or worse.

Would it be possible to add detect this particular error and print a 
more useful message?  I am thinking of something of something like
SyntaxError: calling the 'print' function requires ()s, as in "print(x)"
or maybe
SyntaxError: did you mean "print(...)"?

I was 'inspired' by a recent SO question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24273599/idle-gui-is-unable-to-give-output
which was closed as a duplicate of the 2009 question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/826948/syntax-error-on-print-with-python-3
I imagine that there have been other duplicates.  The same question (and 
answer) has appeared multiple times on python-list also.

If we do this, I am sure someone will ask why we do not automatically 
'fix' the error.  One answer would be that the closing ) is needed to 
determine the intended end of the call.  A longer version would be that 
if we insert (, we are just guessing that the insertion is correct and 
we still would not know, without guessing, where to put the ).

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy