On 2/20/06, Donn Cave <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Quoth Steven D'Aprano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > ... > | Nobody denies that Python code running with no optimization tricks is > | (currently) slower than compiled C code. That's a matter of objective > | fact. Nobody denies that Python can be easily run in interactive mode. > | Nobody denies that *at some level* Python code has to be interpreted. > | > | But ALL code is interpreted at some level or another. And it is equally > | true that at another level Python code is compiled. Why should one take > | precedence over the other? > > I have no idea, what precedence? All I'm saying is that Python matches > what people think of as an interpreted language. You can deny it, but > but it's going to look like you're playing games with words, and to no > real end, since no one could possibly be deceived for very long. If you > give me a Python program, you have 3 choices: cross your fingers and > hope that I have the required Python interpreter version, slip in a > 25Mb Python interpreter install and hope I won't notice, or come clean > and tell me that your program needs an interpreter and I should check to > see that I have it.
You're correct as far as it goes, but can you provide a reasonable definition for "interpreted" that matches the common usage? Most people can't. When asked to name some interpreted (or scripting) languages, they'll name some off - perl, python, ruby, javascript, basic... They won't say Java. Ask them why Python is interpreted and Java isn't and you'll have a hard time getting a decent technical answer, because Python isn't all that different from Java in that regard, especially pre-JIT versions of Java. Probably the most accurate definition of "interpreted" as it is used in the wild is "one of these languages: perl, python, perl, ruby, etc". That is, you're essentially claiming that Python is interpreted because everyone thinks of it that way, technical correctness be damned. There is an obvious difference between Python and C. Nobody would deny that. But it's a fairly hard thing to *quantify*, which is why people make sloppy categorizations. That's not a problem as long as there isn't prejudice associated with the categorization, which there is. I wonder how "interpreted" people would think Python is if the automagic compilation to .pyc was removed and you had to call "pythonc" first. > > Donn Cave, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
