[Python-Dev] Help on choosing a PEP to volunteer on it : 308, 328 or 343 (original) (raw)

Brett Cannon brett at python.org
Thu Feb 9 03:45:01 CET 2006

On 2/8/06, Thomas Wouters <thomas at xs4all.net> wrote:

On Wed, Feb 08, 2006 at 01:39:34PM -0800, Brett Cannon wrote: > On 2/8/06, Joao Macaiba <joao.macaiba at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 1. For a newbie in the Python core development, what is the best PEP to > > begin with ? > Wild guess? 308, but that still requires changing the grammar and > editing the AST compiler. 328 will need playing with the import code > which is known to be hairy. 343 has the same needs as 308, but I bet > would be more complicated. Joao brought up an interesting point on #python on freenode, though... Is there any documentation regarding the AST code? I started fiddling with it just to get to know it, adding some weird syntax just for the hell of it, and I think I understand how the AST is supposed to work. I haven't gotten around to actually coding it, though (just like I haven't gotten around to PEP 13 ;) so maybe I have it all wrong. A short description of the principles and design choices would be nice, maybe with a paragraph on how to add new syntax constructs. How tightly should the AST follow the grammar, for instance?

There is a Python/compile.txt that was originally started by Jeremy that I subsequently picked up and heavily fleshed out at the last PyCon sprint. It didn't get checked in during the merge because Jeremy was not sure where to put it. But I just checked it in since I realized I can delete it once PEP 339 is updated. It is slightly out of date, though, because of the lack of info on the arena API.

(I pointed Joao to the augmented assignment patch for 2.0, which doesn't say anything about the AST but should be helpful hints in his quest to understand Python's internals. Lord knows that's how I learned it... By the time he groks it all, hopefully someone can help him with the AST parts ;)

Probably best way to read it is to follow how an 'if' statement gets compiled. That's how I picked it up.

-Brett

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