doc strings and efficiency

[Michael P. Soulier]

    Hello. I didn't find this in the Python FAQ, so I'm asking. My apologies
if it's in some totally obvious location and I just need more coffee *sip*. 

    Documentation strings, as they are available at runtime, increase the
memory requirement of the running python process. Currently, I have memory to
burn in the environments that I code on, but if I want to use Python in an
environment where memory is very tight, I find myself suddenly wondering if I
should use docstrings. 
    I'd like to, as they are a great feature of the language, but a "would be
nice" feature in the interpreter would be an option to ignore them, so that
under tight conditions I could shut them off, but still have them in the
source code for debugging on boxes where I'm not under those tight
restrictions. 
    Does anyone know of any plans for such a feature? Any counter-arguments
for why this would not be necessary? 

    Thanks very much,

    Mike

-- 
Michael P. Soulier, TD12, SKY  Tel: 613-765-4699 (ESN: 39-54699)
Optical Networks, Nortel Networks, SDE Pegasus
"...the word HACK is used as a verb to indicate a massive amount
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