Assorted Questions regarding the future of Python...

[Rob Hodges]

Alessandro Bottoni <Alessandro.Bottoni at think3.com> writes:

> 3) Visual Basic has two advantages on Python: it can compile programs (OK: I
> know that we can generate "frozen" Python programs with "Freeze") 

Unless something has changed dramatically since I last used windoze,
VB is not compiled (in the sense of native machine code) any more than
a frozen python program; rather, VB "executables" have a small header
of native code that launches the vbrunxxx.dll (interpreter) to run the
bytecode that makes up the rest of the file.  Which is more or less
the equivalent of writing "#! /usr/bin/env python" at the top of your
python script in UN*X, providing a corresponding .pyc has been
generated.  Or double-clicking a .pyc file in windoze, for that
matter.  So either way, your users have to either have the python
interpreter or the appropriate vb dll somewhere on their system.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.  (Though there's no way I'll
ever touch VB <*shudder*>; just that I wouldn't like to be spreading
disinformation.)

-Rob