[Python-ideas] Making colons optional?

Sat Feb 7 00:20:54 CET 2009

On Feb 6, 2009, at 1:11 PM, Riobard Zhan wrote:
>> On 6-Feb-09, at 11:08 AM, Aahz wrote:
>>> On Fri, Feb 06, 2009, Riobard Zhan wrote:
>>>>>> I think the mailing list I am posting to is called "Python Ideas".
>>>> That doesn't mean that people will have any interest in your 
>> ideas. You
>> should pay attention to what people are telling you and spend less 
>> time
>> arguing with them.
>>> It is pretty clear that colon-supporters do not pay attention to the 
> inconsistency of semicolons being optional and colons being 
> mandatory that I mentioned, and try to argue with me using a set of 
> reasons why they love colons when in fact the same reasons would 
> obviously make them love semicolons, and ignore the fact that they 
> are used to colons not because it is a better idea but they are 
> never allowed to omit.
>>>> Keep in mind that Guido is still BDFL, and you have
>> effectively zero chance of convincing him to drop the colons.
>> It does not stop me giving it a try.

I Will give you an idea, change the rules of the parser so your idea 
works (making colon optional) and maybe even making comas optional and 
then show us how it works and then maybe convert the whole stdlib to 
be colon free (and maybe comma free)... this is probably going to 
convince more people that you are right... or it will convince you 
that you are wrong :). I think it will be quite simple to do (as you 
say it they are there just because so it should be a simple grammar 
change).
Good luck,
and I will probably play with your demo python
--
Leonardo Santagada
santagada at gmail.com