[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 318: Decorators last before colon

[Guido van Rossum]

> presumably the parser could handle this syntax if "as" were a keyword. 

Not really.  The parser is really dumb, it han only handle one
alternative starting with a particular token at any point.  Since '['
can already start an expression and an expression is a valid
statement, anything else also starting with '[', even if it isn't a
valid expression, cannot be accepted.  You may be thinking of Yacc,
which has much more liberal rules.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)