"Douglas Alan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | > But why is the ability to abstract syntax good? | | It allows the community to develop language features in a modular way | without having to sully the code base for the language itself.
Anyone can write modules, experimental or otherwise, without touching the code base for any particular implementation. For those whose know one of the implementation languages, source code control systems allow one to do experiments on branches without 'sullying' the trunk or impeding the development thereof. There are a least a few experimental branches, and branches of branches, in the main CPython repository and an unknown number of independent branches out in the community for either production use or for developing features aimed back at the core. One of the goals of the PyPy project was to allow people to experiment with syntax extensions in Python itself. (But I don't know how easy that is yet.) But I think that overall the problem of designing new syntax is more in the design than the implementation. Anything new has to be usable, readable, not clash too much with existing style, not introduce ambiguities, and not move the extended language outside the LL(1) [I believe that is right] subset of CFLs. tjr -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
