Binary operators are not directly reimplementable, this ain’t Ruby. Some of them can be changed implicitly with a bit of __smth__ magic, others are implemented in the class of one side with a parameter of the other side—and it happens that I often need it the other way around. Suppose the idea of the script is to open the file, read all the lines, stick them together, strip the result, parse it, perform some xpath and create an new element for each element found that way. Easy? Yes. Realistic? Well, the reroot2nonterminals transformation generator is written that way. What do we see there?
And how this would have looked like in my dream python?
Yeah, I know, I know. The problem is inhererent and not really the sole fault of python. However, python already has that nifty self mechanism, which eliminates the difference between a.method() and method(a), and that duality is commonly exploited with string module, for instance. The only thing I need here is two selfs for binary expressions. Or more, for n-ary… Or even…
(The ElementTree is intentionally left out for its side effects, don’t bother). This code actually works, with some magic woven in the Wrapper class. Anyway, if any language ever does this kind of meta-programming naturally, it would be beyond good and evil, I could honestly retire as a language engineer, shave my head, get a peg leg and become a pirate ninja. For now at least it is implementable as meta-hack.
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