PEP0238 lament

[Gareth McCaughan]

Steve Horne wrote:

> I've had idle thoughts for some time about a language that would allow
> you to define - within the language itself - the syntax and semantics
> for sublanguages. Only the lexical rules would be fixed, though there
> would need to be several built-in sublanguages - grammar and
> translation definition, simple compile-time imperative and simple
> run-time imperative being the obvious ones. The thought was originally
> provoked by wanting to support many different paradigms efficiently
> and concisely in the same language - if anyone comes up with a new
> paradigm, they just create a library that defines a suitable grammar
> and translation and, hey presto, anyone can use it without changing
> languages, and without discarding code written for other paradigms.
> 
> It suddenly seems so much more like a practical idea.

It's existed for years. It's called Lisp, and it's
the reason why Python is only the second best programming
language in the world <0.5 wink>.

I'm afraid it doesn't say that 1/2 == 0, though. It has
rationals.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan  Gareth.McCaughan at pobox.com
.sig under construc