documenting formal operational semantics of Python

[gideon]

Hi Everybody,

In the context of a master's thesis I'm currently looking into
Python's operational semantics. Even after extensive searching on the
web, I have not found any formal model of Python. Therefore I am
considering to write one myself. To make a more informed decision, I
would like to ask you:

What previous work has been done that I should be aware of? Currently
I have found exactly nothing on python itself. There is some
interesting work on other, related languages like Smalltalk.

Which version of Python is the most interesting? Python 3.0, although
it would be a moving target, seems promising. Because it will simplify
the language in some aspects by ditching backwards compatibility (e.g.
old style classes and coercion), the semantics will be more clean.

Of course I will get, answers to many questions I did not ask. In
fact, I would like you to vent your opinions on this matter.

Thanks!