[Armin Rigo Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 03:02:49PM -0800]
Hello Holger,
On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 08:03:40PM +0100, Samuele Pedroni wrote:
how do you intend to use any of the existing C-libraries, then? Rely on CPython to provide the binding?
The point was whether you want your builtin types "abstractions" to be directly ctypes based.
Yes, sorry. I was thinking about that, i.e. how we internally represent the built-in types. Being able to call external C code is another matter.
ok.
I think that progressing in the ctypes direction can happen in parallel with Python-Core pythonifications. Beeing able to make C-library calls (like File-IO) without specialized intermediate C-code does seem like an important feature.
Yes, although I have another potential objection here. It might not be a problem to have specialized intermediate C code if this code is generated, just like -- after all it's the goal -- most of the rest of the final C code of the interpreter.
I am all for doing as much as possible as runtime. Beeing able to get a python c-library binding dynamically (without relying on a C-interpreter) makes it usable on platforms where you don't have the right C-compiler ready - besides just beeing a cool feature. Generating some C source for the interpreter itself still makes sense, though. But i'd like any code generation to remain simple - including the generator code itself. Maybe it makes sense to compile to a 'nucleus' VM which only has very few byte codes and whose implementation can be generated. IMO the complexity of (and dependency on) C source generators could be reduced this way. greetings, holger