[Python-Dev] Re: pirate (python+parrot)

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 13:21:52 -0400, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.net> 
wrote:
> If your efforts save Dan Sugalski time in implementing Python on Parrot,
> realize that it may cost me a round of drinks and a laundry run (if
> Dan has a good aim).

On the other hand, if Parrot provides stacklessness, JIT compilation, 
cross-language interop, and pushes some complex C-level maintenance burden 
onto other people, perhaps you'll consider consider the laundry run and 
drinks worth it in the end.  No way to find out if Parrot is up to the task 
without trying...

> OTOH there may be a devilish plan here to let Dan believe he won't
> have to work very hard, and then in the end he'll lose because your
> implementations are inefficcient... :-)

For some reason the Parrot developers seem more focused on working with 
bytecode; see Dan Sugalski's weblog at 
http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/000205.html .  (There's an amusing 
link in the comments for a Python-bytecode-to-SAX-event-stream translator; 
my mind is boggled.)  Bytecode translation doesn't strike me as a very 
useful course to follow, because Python's bytecode is vulnerable to being 
changed between versions and because looking at bytecode provides less 
information than looking at an AST.

--amk                                            (www.amk.ca)
MENELAUS: An odd man, lady? Every man is odd.
      -- _Troilus and Cressida_, IV, v