The other problem with not thinking about that general case is that people will keep on proposing little bitty features that nibble at the problem but may or may not be compatible with a general solution. To the extent that such patches get accepted, we'll be forced into either backwards-compatibility breakage or sub-optimal solutions when we do get to the point of wanting a general answer. I'd much rather start with a generalized design and then implement it piece by piece.
(This is more or less the same point as my nearby stand against localized hacking of backslash parsing rules.)
regards, tom lane
In order for me to understand how high the bar has been set, can you (Robert/Tom mostly, but I welcome any responses) explain what you mean by "full-blown expression language"? What constructs must it include, etc?
