[Python-ideas] Adding iOS/Android support to Python

[Todd]

On Oct 25, 2014 10:13 AM, "Russell Keith-Magee" <russell at keith-magee.com>
wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 3:36 PM, Todd <toddrjen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Oct 25, 2014 4:22 AM, "Russell Keith-Magee" <russell at keith-magee.com>
wrote:
>> >  3) Disabling certain modules on mobile platforms. Supporting modules
like linuxaudiodev, ossaudiodev, readline, curses, idle and tkinter on
mobile platforms doesn't make much sense; modules likes bsddb and bz2 are
difficult to support due to library dependencies; and the need for modules
like multiprocessing is arguable (and difficult to support on mobile). Even
providing a Python executable/shell is arguable for these platforms.
>>
>> I would definitely be extremely interested in a python shell in
android.  One thing I feel are lacking on android are good advanced
mathematical tools and and python shell with appropriate libraries could
make a very powerful open-source tool for that.  There have been some
attempts at that already.
>
> Yes - and (to the best of my knowledge) none of them provide the default
Python shell. They're custom user interfaces, using native system controls,
that provide a shell-like UI. What I'm talking about here is the literal
"python.exe" build target - the one that is an executable that starts and
expects to attach to stdin/stdout. *That* executable isn't practical on
Android *or* iOS, because neither platform has the concept of a "console"
in the traditional Unix sense of the word.

Perhaps no console by default, but it is possible to have a traditional
console on android.  I have one and many ROMs install one by default.  So
although it may not be part of the default configuration I think it would
be good to support it for the people who do have a console.

Further, with rooted users, python could be set up to be used with the
built-in adb shell.

It is unclear from the discussion where things ultimately came out on this
issue. If there still a possibility it might removed, although I understand
that consoles are not the primary use-case, I think is still a valid
use-case that should supported.

>> I would also differentiate android and iOs more.  Android seems to be
betting on multi-core performance while iOs seems to be betting on
single-chore performance. So while multiprocessing may not make much sense
on iOs, I think it may be more sense on Android, especially if they move
from 4 to 8 cores.
>
> Firstly - I don't know what gave you the impression Apple devices aren't
multicore - every Apple processor since the A5 (introduced in the iPhone 4S
and iPad 2) has been at least dual core, and the A8X in the newest iPads is
triple core.

I was referring to the benchmarks where corresponding iOs and android
devices generally have better single and multi-core performance,
respectively, but you right that isn't that important.

> Secondly, if you're assuming "multicore" automatically means
"mathematical powerhouse", you're mistaken. If you're planning on doing
serious mathematical heavy lifting on a phone... well, you've already made
your first mistake :-)

No, on the contrary, I was thinking that on devices with limited
performance, being able to divide components between processes, such as UI
and logic, is all the more important.  It probably would not be any use for
the sort of calculator I am thinking about.
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