[Python-Dev] deprecating .pyo and -O

[R. David Murray]

On Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:14:54 +0200, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:58:16 +0100
> Floris Bruynooghe <flub at devork.be> wrote:
> > On 14 June 2012 11:25, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> > > Honestly, I think the best option would be to deprecate .pyo files as
> > > well as the useless -O option. They only cause confusion without
> > > providing any significant benefits.
> > 
> > +1
> > 
> > But what happens to __debug__ and assert statements?  I think it
> > should be possible to always put assert statements inside a __debug__
> > block and then create -O a simple switch for setting __debug__ to
> > False.  If desired a simple strip tool could then easily remove
> > __debug__ blocks and (unused) docstrings.
> 
> I don't really see the point. In my experience there is no benefit to
> removing assert statements in production mode. This is a C-specific
> notion that doesn't really map very well to Python code. Do other
> high-level languages have similar functionality?

What does matter though is the memory savings.  I'm working with an
application where the difference between normal and -OO is around a 10%
savings (about 2MB) in program DATA size at startup, and that makes a
difference for an ap running in a memory constrained environment.

A docstring stripper would enable the bulk of that savings, but it is
still nice to be able to omit code (such as debug logging statements)
as well.

--David