This is not a problem, because I will be implementing in Haskell a system to 
manipulate Python code. Thus managing the python code that manages the C code 
will become a far easier task :-)

   You are perfectly happy using a really crappy system for manipulating C code 
(CPP) but fear that a better system would be impossible to get right?  What if 
I proposed just one tweak to CPP to make PETSc source code better, would you 
consider that?


On Feb 7, 2013, at 11:39 PM, Jed Brown <jedbrown at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:

> 
> On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
>  Fine. It is a new language, actually it is python code that marches through 
> ASTs and modifies them but you can call it a new language.  But the C is 
> still C! It is not C plus "key words" or "imbedded comments" it is always 
> just plan C that is being programmed ON (by the new language).
> 
> But it's not just C because the source code includes the python that is 
> modifying it. After all, for almost any given outcome you desire, you'll have 
> a choice between implementing it in C, implementing it by enhancing the 
> python, or some combination of the two. The semantics sure aren't completely 
> defined by the *.c files any more.
> 
> I fear you'll end up constantly tweaking the Python, occasionally needing to 
> change semantics there, which will break a lot of your existing "C" (not C 
> because it was written so that the generator would manipulate it in a 
> desirable way).

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