Python code is compiled before execution

[BartC]

On 11/10/2016 18:14, Steve D'Aprano wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2016 12:19 am, BartC wrote:
>
>> Python is not really suited for AOT native-code compilation.
>
> You might be right, but the author of Nuitka disagrees.
>
> http://nuitka.net/

I tried the same thing with a dynamic language: translating byte-code 
into a series of function calls in a compiled language. So it wasn't 
really compiling to proper native code; the native code still had to 
deal with the byte-code rather than do the work directly.

It didn't really work: I saved the minor overheads of byte-code 
dispatching, but it ended up being slower than byte-code. (Perhaps to do 
with worse cache performance and fewer inlining opportunities.)

 From looking at the overview in that link, it might be taking a similar 
approach. But maybe CPython dispatch overheads are higher, or maybe it 
just does a better job!

-- 
Bartc