Python OS

[Peter Hansen]

Richard Blackwood wrote:
> 
>>> P.S.  If one can program interrupt routines in C, they can do the same
>>> in Python.
>>
>> Show me how you set the interrupt jumptables to your routines in 
>> python and
>> how you write time-critical code which has to be executed in a few 
>> hundred
>> cpu-cycles. And how good that works together with the GIL.
>>
> Here is my logic:  If one can do X in C and Python is C-aware (in other 
> words Python can be exposed to C) then Python can do X via such exposure.

Unfortunately the logic is flawed, even in the case that you
quoted above!

You _cannot_ use Python for a time-critical interrupt, even
when you allow for pure C or assembly code as the bridge
(since Python _cannot_ be used natively for interrupts, of
course), because -- as noted above! -- the interrupt must
execute in a few hundred CPU cycles.

Given that the cost of invoking the Python interpreter on
a bytecode-interrupt routine would be several orders of
magnitude higher, I don't understand why you think it
is possible for it to be as fast.

Of course, if you will allow both assembly/C code here and
there as a bridge, *and* you are willing to accept an operating
system that is arbitrarily slower at certain time-critical
operations (such as responding to mouse activities) than we
are used to now, then certainly Python can be used for such things...

-Peter