[Python-Dev] 2.4 news reaches interesting places

[Armin Rigo]

Hi Skip,

On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 04:49:30AM -0600, Skip Montanaro wrote:
> 
>     >> The other thing we can do is finish the portable backend for psyco
>     >> and make it a standard module.  Then Python won't be slow, it will be
>     >> compiled, and py2exe will be able to make a single-file executable.
> 
>     Armin> You probably mean that Psyco can dynamically compile Python
>     Armin> bytecodes even if they have been hidden into an .exe file by
>     Armin> py2exe.
> 
> I didn't read it that way.  My impression was that py2exe be modified to
> include and enable psyco if it's available when building an .exe.  You
> would, in theory, get a single file distribution as well as dynamic
> compilation.

Yes, I agree with this.  What I meant is that when I first read the original
paragraph (the 1st one quoted above), I thought it meant that in the future
py2exe and Psyco could be combined in such a way that we'd essentially have a
compiler from Python producing a "classical" compiled binary.  A lot of people
could read it that way.

The question is if we should advertise a Psyco+py2exe combination using a
similar wording, such that it superficially sounds like we are doing a
"classical" compilation from .py to .exe, whereas it actually means that we
are hiding Psyco with the bytecodes in a .exe.  After all, from a user's (or
journalist's) point of view the result is similar, performancewise.

Whether Psyco is reliable enough for this is yet another issue...  I'd
classify Psyco as "mostly reliable" only...


A bientot,

Armin.