Roel Schroeven wrote: > Bruno Desthuilliers schreef: >> 1/ being interpreted or compiled (for whatever definition of these >> terms) is not a property of a language, but a property of an >> implementation of a language. >> >> 2/ actually, all known Python implementations compile to byte-code. >> > > You keep saying that, and in theory you're right. But I'm still inclined > to disagree with it, since the practical reality is different. Python is > indeed compiled to byte code, but if you compare that byte code with > assembly code you'll see that there's a whole world of difference > between the two, largely because of the dynamical nature of Python. Fact > is that Python was designed from the start to run on a virtual machine, > not on the native hardware. > > C OTOH was designed to be compiled to assembly code (or directly to > machine code) and as a result there are no (or virtually) no > implementations that interpret C or compile it to bytecode. > > I love Python, but IMHO it's a bit silly to maintain that the fact that > Python compiles to byte code instead of assembly code/machine code is > purely a matter of implementation; on the contrary, I believe it's a > result of its design. I also think that there's a large difference > between byte code and machine code (in Python's case; I haven't looked > at other languages), and that it's a bit silly to try to trivialize that > difference.
I strongly disagree. See the Java which is compiled to bytecode *explicitly*, jet the JVM-bytecode is closer to Python than to what C++ is compiled to. But then, it's possible to have JIT-compilers that bring machine code back into the picture. And see python + psyco as JIT. And OTOH see Objective-C and it's runtime for an example of a machine-code-compiled language that still has huge dynamic runtime parts. All these blur the image extremely and make Bruno's point: compilation is an artifact, not some inherent property of a language. Diez -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
