On Mar 11, 2008, at 5:19 AM, Dag Sverre Seljebotn wrote: > I feel like reaching something of a summary or conclusion before > withdrawing from the discussion ... I feel that what has happened > now is > more of a brainstorming session and that it may be possible to > identify > more fundamental issues about how the language should function.
Yep. Brainstorming was exactly what I was hoping to happen. > Here's my conclusions: > - This is complicated enough that development using the current syntax > should perhaps simply continue, and that it intuitively looks like > (though perhaps it should be explored in more detail) that most > features > one would implement (special type support, operator overloading, type > inference to a degree) can be developed within the current syntax and > ported to future approaches with little problem. I agree--the current syntax is very good at what it does and I don't see it going away any time soon, if ever. Being able to do (nearly) everything in a pure-python way will be nice, but I would imagine whatever we come up with some of it will be more cumbersome than the "cdef" way. With the exception of compile-time macros, they are simply clues to the compiler, and would be handled at the parser level to give identical trees. > - Doing all the nice stuff (compile time macros, Python-valid syntax, > look closer on variable declaration syntax) etc. should perhaps be > done > through identifying a few key principles in how Cython and Python > should > operate together and see where those principles lead us. (I now think > that one such principle might be that Python syntax should work like a > Python users expect it to in every way, and that other types of > behaviour requires extension syntax - regarding typing variables for > instance.) Yes, Python syntax has Python behavior has been a guiding principle for Cython (and Pyrex) since its inception. > I think I personally need a week or so pause at this point to mature > those thoughts, so I won't make more syntax comments for now. (But I'm > not trying to stop you!, just letting you know.) Me too, and I'm going to be away at a conference later this week too. Though we have covered several topics, one thing we haven't come up with even any ideas for is how to indicate types support operator overloading (e.g. in a pxd file). I'm curious to see what anyone can come up with for that, as I haven't had any ideas that I like yet. - Robert _______________________________________________ Cython-dev mailing list [email protected] http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/cython-dev
