python3: 'where' keyword

[Steve Holden]

Paul Rubin wrote:

> "Carl Banks" <invalidemail at aerojockey.com> writes:
> 
>>When I asked you to do this, it was just a rhetorical way to tell you
>>that I didn't intend to play this game.  It's plain as day you're
>>trying to get me to admit something.  I'm not falling for it.
>>
>>If you have a point to make, why don't you just make it?
> 
> 
> You asked me to compare the notion of macros with the Zen list.  I did
> so.  I didn't see any serious conflict, and reported that finding.
> Now you've changed your mind and you say you didn't really want me to
> make that comparison after all.
> 
Well I for one disagreed with many of your estimates of the zen's 
applicability to macros, but I just couldn't be arsed saying so.

> An amazing amount of the headaches that both newbies and experienced
> users have with Python, could be solved by macros.  That's why there's
> been an active interest in macros for quite a while.  It's not clear
> what the best way to do design them is, but their existence can have a
> profound effect on how best to do these ad-hoc syntax extensions like
> "where".  Arbitrary limitations that are fairly harmless without
> macros become a more serious pain in the neck if we have macros.
> 
This is not a justifiable assertion, IMHO, and if you think that newbies 
will have their lives made easier by the addition of ad hoc syntax 
extensions then you and I come from a different world (and I suspect the 
walls might be considerably harder in mine than in yours).

> So, we shouldn't consider these topics separately from each other.
> They are likely to end up being deeply related.

I don't really understand why, if macros are so great (and you are 
reading the words of one who was using macros back in the days of 
Strachey's GPM) why somebody doesn't produce a really useful set of 
(say) M4 macros to prove how much they'd improve Python.

Now that's something that would be a bit less ignorable than this 
apparently interminable thread.

regards
  Steve

PS: Your continued use of the NOSPAM.invalid domain is becoming much 
more irritating than your opinions on macros in Python. Using a bogus 
URL is piling crap on top of more crap.
-- 
Steve Holden               http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming  http://pydish.holdenweb.com/
Holden Web LLC      +1 703 861 4237  +1 800 494 3119