code is data

[John Roth]

Anton Vredegoor wrote:
> With the inclusion of ElementTree (an XML-parser) in Python25 and recent
> developments concerning JSON (a very Pythonesque but somewhat limited
> XML notation scheme, let's call it statically typed XML) Python seems to
> have reached a stage where it now seems to be possible to completely
> swallow lesser languages code, modify it, and spit out new source code
> targeting the original language the code was written in, or even make a
> translation to other languages.

When I heard of the new AST based compiler, I thought it
would finally be possible to extend things cleanly. Then
I learned that they weren't going to allow modification of
the AST.

There are a lot of things you can't do in source if the
language doesn't allow it.  Python is pretty good compared
to other languages, but it's still not possible to create
new control structures with short circuit semantics.
And that's one example.

I saw the "make" statement as a breath of fresh air.
Then it got shot down for what were, to me, totally
trivial reasons. That's a second one.

Sigh.

John Roth 
>
> 
> Your thoughts please.
> 
> Anton