python3: 'where' keyword

Jeff Shannon jeff at ccvcorp.com
Tue Jan 11 15:50:38 EST 2005


Paul Rubin wrote:

> Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> writes:
> 
>>[...] 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).
> 
> I'm saying that many proposals for ad hoc extensions could instead be
> taken care of with macros.  Newbies come to clpy all the time asking
> how to do assignment expressions, or conditional expressions, or
> call-by-reference.  Sometimes new syntax results.  Lots of times,
> macros could take care of it.

Personally, given the requests in question, I'm extremely thankful 
that I don't have to worry about reading Python code that uses them. 
I don't *want* people to be able to make up their own 
control-structure syntax, because that means I need to be able to 
decipher the code of someone who wants to write Visual Basic as 
filtered through Java and Perl...  If I want mental gymnastics when 
reading code, I'd use Lisp (or Forth).  (These are both great 
languages, and mental gymnastics would probably do me good, but I 
wouldn't want it as part of my day-to-day requirements...)

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International




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