variable declaration

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Alex Martelli wrote:
[snip]
> I disagree: compile time is when the compiler is running (for
example,
> the compiler is the component which diagnoses syntax errors, while
other
> errors are diagnosed ``at runtime'').
[snip]

That thing about syntax errors is news to me. I thought they were
caught at runtime, since you can catch them as exceptions, as in:

try: prijnt projnt
except SyntaxError: print "See, it gets caught"

If this happens at compile-time, I'd like to know how.
Thanks,
--
 - Alexandre