"CPython"

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2022 at 07:48, Roel Schroeven <roel at roelschroeven.net> wrote:
>
> Paulo da Silva schreef op 20/06/2022 om 21:01:
> > Às 18:19 de 20/06/22, Stefan Ram escreveu:
> > >    The same personality traits that make people react
> > >    to troll postings might make them spread unconfirmed
> > >    ideas about the meaning of "C" in "CPython".
> > >
> > >    The /core/ of CPython is written in C.
> > >
> > >    CPython is the /canonical/ implementation of Python.
> > >
> > >    The "C" in "CPython" stands for C.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Not so "unconfirmed"!
> > Look at this article, I recently read:
> > https://www.analyticsinsight.net/cpython-to-step-over-javascript-in-developing-web-applications/
> >
> > There is a sentence in ther that begins with "CPython, short for Core
> > Python, a reference implementation that other Python distributions are
> > derived from, ...".
>
> Counterpoint: https://wiki.python.org/moin/SummerOfCode/2017/python-core
> says "The reference implementation of Python is CPython, so named
> because it's written in C." Even in the absence of other evidence I'd
> much rather trust a python.org page than a www.analyticsinsight.net page
> on the subject of Python implementations.

Be aware that this is a wiki, so anyone can edit it. But that also
means you can check the "Info" link to see the history of the page,
and in this case, the text in question was added by user TerriOda, who
- as can be confirmed in various places - is heavily involved in GSOC
Python projects and the like, so I would consider this to be fairly
good information.

(Though I can't honestly say whether many of the core Python devs read
that wiki, so it's always possible that false information stays there
untouched.)

> But there's more.
>
> Apart from www.analyticsinsight.net I can't find any website that
> mentions "Core Python" as a Python implementation. That's a strong
> indication that www.analyticsinsight.net is wrong on that point. Frankly
> that website seems very low quality in general. In that same article
> they say:
>
> "CPython is a descendant of Pyscript built on Pyodide, a port of
> CPython, or a Python distribution for the browser and Node.js that is
> based on Webassembly and Emscripten."
>
> CPython is definitely not a descendant of Pyscript! Looks like someone
> found something (semi-) interesting and tried to write something
> insightful about it, but without really understanding any of it. Other
> articles don't seem to be any better.
>
> So we have an untrustworthy site that's the only one to claim that
> CPython is short for Core Python, and we have an official site that says
> CPython is so named because it's written in C. Hm, which one to believe?
>

I think that's about as settled as it'll ever be. Like many things, it
doesn't necessarily have any stronger origin than "someone started
using the term, and it stuck". Reminds me of trying to research the
origin of the name "Idle" (or "IDLE" - the Integrated Development and
Learning Environment") and being unable to find any proof that it was
named after a certain Eric, but nothing to disprove it either...

ChrisA