PPython

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <38EDED43.78A97864 at olf.com>, Jason Benderly <jbenderl at olf.com> writes:
|> Nick Maclaren wrote:
|> 
|> > If you want a really silly idea, it probably wouldn't be hard to
|> > convert Python's C source to Perl, because the former looks pretty
|> > clean and therefore could be translated semi-automatically without
|> > needing a full-blown C to Perl compiler.  That's the easy bit.
|> >
|> > When you put 130,000 lines of translated source into Perl, you
|> > would discover things about Perl that you didn't want to know and
|> > even its author had not suspected :-)
|> 
|> Could yo be more specific about those things that you wouldn't want to know.
|> I want to know...

No :-)

It is a long time since I looked at the innards of Perl, so I can't
predict any specific source of chaos - but I assuredly can predict
that there would be some!

I suspect that the same would be true of Python, but haven't looked
at it in enough detail to be quite so certain.  But my statement
applies to virtually ANY large program that is pushed so far beyond
its normal limits, so I wasn't exactly sticking my neck out.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  nmm1 at cam.ac.uk
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679