A historical question

[Jerald]

Hi.

I'd like to know when python started working with bytecode.
It seems natural that in the first python implementations
code was really interpreted : executed directly.

As a result, in the first days, when the py-programmer
said:

   def foo ():
       print 'foo'

python stored the function body and executed it each time
foo was called. In some time it was decided to compile
this to bytecode, optimize it and call the bytecode instead.

Is it so?

I am very curious.


Gerald