Python un-plugging the Interpreter

[Steve Holden]

John Nagle wrote:
> S.Mohideen wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>         I was thinking about the feasbility of adjusting Python as a 
>> compiled language. Being said that I feel these are the following 
>> advantages of doing so --
>> 1) Using the powerful easy-to -use feature of Python programming 
>> language constructs.
>> 2) Making the program to run at par with the compiled version of C/C++ 
>> program- this is the main benefit which can be derived out of this.
>> 3) Highly re-use existing Python code for High performance application.
>> 4) Acheive true parallelism and performance by getting rid of the 
>> middle-man Interpreter and GIL.
>>
>> I know this must be appearing like a foolish idea. But I would like to 
>> know the opinion of people who might have thought about it.
> 
>     It's a great idea.  Look at ShedSkin, PyPy, and Jython, all of
> which tried to do it, and none of which really became finished
> products.
> 
That's not really fair. ShedSkin and PyPy are still works in progress. 
Jython was feature-complete, and has merely suffered from delayed 
maintenance - the current maintainers are getting closer to current 
language standards as we speak. Even CPython is a worl in progress eben 
though it's normally treated as the reference implementation.

The one compiling implementation you don't mention, of course, is 
IronPython. This compiles to the .NET/Mono CLR, which in turn can use 
JIT techniques to generate machine code that the runtime will cache und 
er the right circumstances.

Overall, then, I think the picture's a little rosier than you paint it 
even though there's always room for improvement.

regards
  Steve
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