Why not a Python compiler?

josephoswald+gg@gmail.com josephoswald at gmail.com
Tue Feb 5 17:55:20 EST 2008


On Feb 5, 4:54 pm, Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-
cybersource.com.au> wrote:

> Okay, you know how hard it is to create a software JIT compiler for a
> language as dynamic as Python? It's REALLY HARD, which is why it hasn't
> already been done[1]. Now you want that done in *hardware*, which is much
> harder. Who's going to spend the money on R&D?
>

To be clear, compiling a language that is dynamic *in the particular
way Python is designed to be dynamic*, for example, documenting and
exporting as an API the dictionary lookup mechanism for method
dispatch, is really hard.

Compiling languages such as Lisp, which are quite dynamic, and in some
ways much *more* dynamic than Python, to native machine code has been
standard practice since the 1970s.

The issue is how Python, for whatever reason, was designed as a
language. Not with whether it is dynamic or static.



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