"Steven D'Aprano" <steau> wrote: > > Well, I don't know about "any problem". And it's not so much about > whether metaprograms can solve problems that can't be solved by anything > else, as whether metaprograms can solve problems more effectively than > other techniques. > > If you include factory functions, class factories, the builder design > pattern, metaclasses, etc. as "metaprogramming", then I use it all the > time, and find it an excellent technique to use. > > But if you mean using a Python program to generate Python source code, > then I can't think of any time I used it. Which doesn't mean that others > don't find it helpful, only that I haven't yet.
I am using the term in the restricted sense of Python writing Python source. Given that, can anybody think of an example that you could not do with a class? (excepting the "stored procedure" aspect) Or can I claim a new a new meta - rule - I would call it van Rooyen's folly... > > Thinking further back, when I was young and programming in Apple's > Hypercard 4GL, I used to frequently use Hypercard scripts to generate new > Hypercard scripts. That was to work around the limitations of the > scripting language. What sort of stuff did you do, and would having had simple OO available have rendered it unnecessary? > > I don't think metaprogramming in the limited sense (programs to output > source code) is a bad idea, but I do think that there are probably better > alternatives in a language like Python. > > True. No argument here - I was just wondering if the relationship holds. - Hendrik -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
