[Python-Dev] More optimisation ideas

[Barry Warsaw]

On Feb 01, 2016, at 11:40 AM, R. David Murray wrote:

>Well, Brett said it would be optional, though perhaps the above
>paragraph is asking about doing it in our Windows build.  But the linux
>distros might make also use the option if it exists, so the question is
>very meaningful.  However, you'd have to ask the distro if the source
>would be shipped in the linux case, and I'd guess not in most cases.

It's very likely the .py files would still be shipped, but perhaps in a -dev
package that isn't normally installed.

>I don't know about anyone else, but on my own development systems it is
>not that unusual for me to *edit* the stdlib files (to add debug prints)
>while debugging my own programs.  Freeze would definitely interfere with
>that.  I could, of course, install a separate source build on my dev
>system, but I thought it worth mentioning as a factor.

I do this too, though usually in a VM or chroot and not in my live system.  A
very common situation for me though is pdb stepping through my own code and
landing in -or passing through- stdlib.

>On the other hand, if the distros go the way Nick has (I think) been
>advocating, and have a separate 'system python for system scripts' that
>is independent of the one installed for user use, having the system-only
>python be frozen and sourceless would actually make sense on a couple of
>levels.

Yep, we've talked about it in Debian-land too, but never quite gotten around
to doing anything.  Certainly I'd like to see some consistency among Linux
distros there (i.e. discussed on linux-sig@).

But even with system scripts, I do need to step through them occasionally.  If
it were a matter of changing a shebang or invoking the script with a different
Python (e.g. /usr/bin/python3s vs. /usr/bin/python3) to get the full unpacked
source, that would be fine.

Cheers,
-Barry