[Python-Dev] Parrot -- should life imitate satire?

[Guido van Rossum]

> Guido van Rossum writes:
> > Yeah, but the runtime could offer a choice of data types -- for Python
> > code the constants table would contain Python ints and strings etc., for
> > Perl code it would contain Perl string-number objects.  Maybe.
> 
> A perl6 value have a vtable, essentially an array of function pointers
> which comprises the standard operations on that value.  I talked to
> Dan (the perl6 internals guy, dan@sidhe.org) about an impedence
> mismatch between Perl and Python data types, and he pointed out that
> you can have Perl values and Python values, each with their own
> semantics, simply by having separate vtables (and thus separate
> functions to implement the behaviour of those types).  Code can work
> with either type because the type carries around (in its vtable) the
> knowledge of how it should behave.

The vtable looks a lot like Python's type object.  Is Perl's vtable an
object in its own right?  In Python, it is: in C, obj->ob_type is the
type object, in Python type(obj) or (in 2.2) obj.__class__ gives the
type object.

> Feel free to grill Dan about these things if you want.

No thanks. :-)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)