• 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