• WithStatementAndOpenGl

(I think you should bring this up in the OpenGl community; if the with-statement supports the usage I don't see why not. ["GvR"])

OpenGL programmers have complained about using Python because the code indentation doesn't follow the display tree. For an example pulled from one of my (Andrew Dalke) projects

        glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP)
        glColor3f(1.0,1.0,1.0) #corner 1
        glNormal3f(0.57735027, 0.57735027, 0.57735027)
        glVertex3f(0.5, 0.5, 0.5)
        glColor3f(1.0,0.0,1.0) #corner 2
        glNormal3f(0.57735027, -0.57735027, 0.57735027)
        glVertex3f(0.5, -0.5, 0.5)
        ...
        glEnd()

Some people write this as some variant of

        glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP)
        if 1:
          glColor3f(1.0,1.0,1.0) #corner 1
          glNormal3f(0.57735027, 0.57735027, 0.57735027)
          glVertex3f(0.5, 0.5, 0.5)
          glColor3f(1.0,0.0,1.0) #corner 2
          glNormal3f(0.57735027, -0.57735027, 0.57735027)
          glVertex3f(0.5, -0.5, 0.5)
          ...
        glEnd()

and sometimes using try/finally so that errors don't cause the gl state to become corrupted.

Would an appropriate use of this proposal be to allow

  with QUAD_STRIP:
      glColor3f(1.0,1.0,1.0) #corner 1
      glNormal3f(0.57735027, 0.57735027, 0.57735027)
      glVertex3f(0.5, 0.5, 0.5)
      glColor3f(1.0,0.0,1.0) #corner 2
      glNormal3f(0.57735027, -0.57735027, 0.57735027)
      glVertex3f(0.5, -0.5, 0.5)
      ....

where there are a bunch of small classes for each of the possible glBegins, such as

class QUAD_STRIP:
  @staticmethod
  def __enter__():
    glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP)
  @staticmethod
  def __exit__(*args):
    glEnd()

If so, I rather like that ability as it makes the graphics programmer's intent clearer and prevents problems balancing glBegin and glEnd - even in the face of code errors in the actual code block! -- Andrew Dalke

Brought up on c.l.py, is there need for a syntax like

  with EXPR1 [as VAR1][, EXPR2 [as VAR2] [, ...]]:
    CODE

which is exactly equivalent to

  with EXPR1 [as VAR1]:
    with EXPR2 [as VAR2]:
      ...
        CODE

The idea was that if multiple with statements were common then this would reduce the visual depth of indentation. For example,

  with db1.lock():
    with db2.lock() as L2:
      print "db2 lock expires", L2.exiry()
      transfer(db1, db2)

could be turned into

  with db1.lock(), db2.lock() as L2:
    print "db2 lock expires", L2.exiry()
        transfer(db1, db2)

We have no idea if this will occur often enough to be useful.

Ahh, Andrew Dalke again here. Timothy Delaney responded to this on c.l.py:

• "It wasn't explicitly rejected, but the feeling seemed to be that it was an unnecessary complication as far as PEP 343 is concerned. There's nothing stopping another PEP proposing this as an extension to PEP 343, and there's nothing stopping that being in Python 2.5 if it's accepted."
  • That's my feeling too -- let's explore one idea at a time

    (despite IanBicking's complaint about fractional progress). One comment: VAR, if present, should have as many pieces as there are EXPRs on the left; the above example would have to be as dummyl, L2. ["GvR"]

    • Isn't it better to mimic the import-as syntax? If not, we would end up with things like

      locking(lock), opening(file) as _, file. Nicolas Fleury