documenting formal operational semantics of Python

[Matthew Woodcraft]

gideon  <gideon.smeding at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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:

[...]

> 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.

Why not start with a common subset? Presumably the easiest thing will
be to start with a small core of the language and work up anyway. It
might turn out that all the interesting work has been done by the time
2.x/3.x makes any difference.

-M-