[Python-Dev] Direction of PyChecker

[Samuele Pedroni]

[GvR]
> But is it really a good idea to codify PVM bytecode as the way to do
> introspection? 
No (but I don't know - for example - what is the tradition under Smalltalk impls)
but it seems that people like to do it that way (inspect also uses bytecode in some
places but maybe there is OK, because is starting from low-level to give an high-level
API). Doesn't pydoc also use imports? 

On the other hand the new nested scope rules don't make life easy for someone using
ASTs.  At least Jeremy and I should come out with a really interoperable symtable module.
At the moment such a beast does not exist under jython and the CPython part is under-specified.

I imagine that a problem is the very late runtime semantics of python, it is very clear,
but then just executing a module you are sure of what are the most likely values of some
stuff.

> I'd much rather have a standard library API that
> parses a module and gives you a list of variables, functions, classes,
> etc., and lets you drill down into the symbol table of each of those.
> (I realize more is needed, you need to be able to inspect every
> statement too -- that can be done by providing access to an AST.)
> 
> --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)


regards, Samuele Pedroni.