Python 2.0 and Stackless

[Will Ware]

Jeremy Hylton <jeremy at beopen.com> wrote:
>We will not be merging Stackless Python before the Python 2.0 release.
>We have no plans to integrate it after the 2.0 release, but post 2.0
>plans are less definite.

Robin Becker (robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk) wrote:
> I find this response rather conservative. JPython is not Python,
> stacklessness + continuations and the like are semantic not
> implementation issues...

Unfortunately the implementation of stacklessness is an implementation
issue, and it depends on a modification of the virtual machine. In CPython
this is easy enough. Theoretically one could find an open-source Java
VM and make the same modifications. There was some discussion of this
possibility a couple months ago, the thread is here:
http://x70.deja.com/viewthread.xp?AN=620013609

Concerns arose over the difficulties of getting a change in the JVM
(1) accepted by Sun, and (2) propogated to everybody else's JVMs. If
JPython could only do continuations on one tweaked JVM and none of the
others, it would violate the write-once-run-anywhere intent of Java.
There was also concern that if you try to work on the wrong JVM (read
"Blackdown"), even though the source code is available, looking at it
will ruin you for cleanroom work. Some of that discussion appears here:
http://x60.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=620013609.1
-- 
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Resistance is futile. Capacitance is efficacious.
Will Ware	email:    wware @ world.std.com