[Python-Dev] Lockstep iteration - eureka!

[Finn Bock]

[Skip Montanaro]
> Could this be extended to many/most/all current instances of keywords in
> Python?  As Tim pointed out, Fortran has no keywords.  It annoys me that I
> (for example) can't define a method named "print".

[Thomas Wouters]
>No. I just (in the trainride from work to home ;) wrote a patch that adds
>'from x import y as z' and 'import foo as fee', and came to the conclusion
>that we can't make 'from' a non-reserved word, for instance. Because if we
>change
>
>'from' dotted_name 'import' NAME*
>
>into
>
>NAME dotted_name 'import' NAME*
>
>the parser won't know how to parse other expressions that start with NAME,
>like 'NAME = expr' or 'NAME is expr'. I know this because I tried it and it
>didn't work :-) So we can probably make most names that are *part* of a
>statement non-reserved words, but not those that uniquely identify a
>statement. That doesn't leave much words, except perhaps for the 'in' in
>'for' -- but 'in' is already a reserved word for other purposes ;)

Just a datapoint.

JPython goes a bit further in its attempt to unreserve reserved words in
certain cases:

- after "def"
- after a dot "."
- after "import"
- after "from" (in an import stmt)
- and as argument names

This allow JPython to do:

   from from import x
   def def(): pass
   x.exec(from=1, to=2)


This feature was added to ease JPython's integration to existing java
libraries. IIRC it was remarked that CPython could also make use of such
a feature when integrating to f.ex Tk or COM.


regards,
finn