Why I love python.

[kosh]

On Friday 13 August 2004 12:33 pm, Nick Patavalis wrote:
> On 2004-08-13, Reinhold Birkenfeld

> Yes, that's exactly what I meant. The only solution in such a case
> would be for the environment to call the compiler at run time, and
> compile classobj then. This means of course that in such cases the
> compiler must be included in the "executable".
>

Why is there a need for a stand alone executable? At least on all the unixes 
whether something is executable is just determined by the executable bit on 
the file. I can execute a python program just as transparently as one in 
compiled c, c++,  etc. I really don't see the point of that.

Overall I would rather that there was more reliance on runtimes and that psyco 
was improved to the point that it was just part of python and could save its 
jited versions of code for reuse later. That way I can upgrade libraries, the 
runtime etc and as long as the system is still source compatible the 
application would still work and it would speed up as it ran as things where 
compiled to optimized code as needed.

Overall I think that standalone binaries are bad long term. I would prefer 
source compatibility since that is more flexible long term. With a jit the 
code should run just as fast but it would make things like security update 
and updating pieces of the system simpler.

> I believe this has been done in other dynamic languages.
>
> Typed-extensions, as you mention, would also help.
>
> /npat