[Chicago] Python Source?

[Carl Karsten]

Chris McAvoy wrote:
> Hi Skip,
> 
> On 3/7/07, skip at pobox.com <skip at pobox.com> wrote:
>>     Chris> As an idea for a future meeting, is anyone on list familiar with
>>     Chris> the Python source enough to give a tour?  Nothing huge, but I'm
>>     Chris> sort of interested in it.  Not that I think I'll do anything with
>>     Chris> it, but just as a "let's all get a little more familiar with the
>>     Chris> source."
>>
>> I used to be, back in the day.  I suppose how well I could lead a discussion
>> depends on how much detail you want.  Can you pose some questions you think
>> might be reasonable to answer with such a tour?
> 
> I've been thinking about your question...I don't have a good answer.
> However, I do have the following loose ramblings.
> 
> I just opened up the code in a text editor, and thought "it would be
> cool to get a guided tour of this code."  I don't have a language
> design background, so from that very naive text-opening, I'm just sort
> of interested in how Python "works."  Stuff like, which data
> structures are written in C, which are in pure Python...how does the
> parser work?  It might also be a good chance to work in the goals of
> PyPy.
> 
> At Pycon, I attended a few of the Stackless talks, and realized I
> really didn't fully understand why stackless was significant or
> different from the standard C Python (apart from the speed
> improvements and nice fun looking threading improvements.)
> 
> What I'm asking is kind of a big question, and sort of really deserves
> a several semester computer science program to answer.  It's me, using
> ChiPy as my own personal un-university.  If you're up for this vague
> challenge, I'm totally interested in listening.chances are it will be boring as 
> 

-1

I took a compiler course - it was a) totally fun and b) gave me incite as to how 
most languages 'work', including ones that do not 'compile to a binary' 
(basically, anything that is parsed which includes scripting languages, 
interactive prompts, SQL and config files.).  It was basically a class in 
Lex/Yacc, 1/2 of which is just learning reg-ex.

I actually have a need to get back into it (lex/yacc) because I need to take 
apart SQL commands.

So how could I -1 it?  easy: I don't think it is a good use of a meeting.  There 
just isn't time to get into it enough to be of any value, let alone interesting.

Carl K