Compiled to bytecode like java?

[sj]

Joel May wrote:

> First, I'm not really familiar with Python, esp under the hood.
> 
> I'm looking for a script language to embed in a device.  I have a
> home-grown
> proprietary script language available, but it's rather primitive.  The
> nice
> thing about it is that the interpreter is very simple and small.  The
> source
> code is compiled to a byte code.  The byte code would be dumped on to the
> device and interpreted there.
> 
> I'd like to use a more powerful language.  Apparently, embedding Python in
> your C app is easy and well documented.
> 
> But I need to know:
> * What would be downloaded to the device?  Would it be the actual source
> code, which the interpreter would then parse and run?  Or is it a
> byte-code
> like Java?  This would have a smaller interpreter and run faster.
> * How complex is the Python source code?  If I port it to an
> python-unsupported processor (a dsp), would I kill myself trying to get it
> to work?  How many lines of source code are we talking about here?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> Joel


I'm of the opinion you should stick to a standard language instead of 
rolling your own.  As stated in other followups python is running on small 
devices.  If size is your main concern you may want to look at FORTH