[Python-ideas] stdlib with its own release cycle ?

[Guido van Rossum]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:47 AM, Michael Foord <fuzzyman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ironclad itself has binary compatibility with Python C extensions, they
> don't need to be recompiled. It uses the .NET FFI (P/Invoke) to work with
> these extensions and on the JVM would use its FFI.

Ok, but that assumes the C extensions are already compiled for CPython
on that platform (presumably .NET). This sounds limiting, and hacky
(need lots of faith in the DLL loader). I also assume that calls back
into the CPython runtime are somehow intercepted and somewhat limited
to what is reasonable to support in the .NET world -- unless you
basically link all of CPython in and then you might as well just make
RPCs to CPython...

> My understanding is that Android now allows native code,

Theoretically, yes. I don't think it's a good use of the platform
though, you get huge binaries, long startup times, and quite limited
functionality. Check out "Android Scripting Environment".

> so if Dalvik has
> the same FFI APIs and you can compile the Python extensions for it *and*
> Jython runs on Dalvik (not currently the case I believe?)

Not yet, and not easy (the bytecode generator would have to be
retargeted and probably a bunch of unsupported Java features would
have to be worked around).

Phones are slow and small...

> then it could work...

> The .NET framework, even leaving aside Mono, is also diverse. There are
> several versions of the .NET framework: .NET CE (Compact Edition) that runs
> on mobile devices and the XBox 360, CoreCLR that runs on Silverlight and an
> embedded version. There is also a Mono application called MonoTouch that
> compiles .NET code for the iPhone (using Ahead Of Time compilation to
> generate native code).

How hard was it to get IronPython to work on all? How much of the
libraries work on all? Does Ironclad work on all?

> The embedded version will never support IronPython. The compact edition of
> .NET currently lacks the System.Reflection.Emit (code generation APIs) that
> IronPython uses. You aren't supposed to use interpreters on the iPhone so
> likewise System.Reflection.Emit can't be compiled with MonoTouch. I mention
> them because the Microsoft dynamic languages team are looking at a cut down
> version of IronPython (with some of the more dynamic features restricted)
> that can run on .NET CE and could be compiled with MonoTouch. It is possible
> that Ironclad could work with this.

Forget I even asked. :-)

> The CoreCLR in Silverlight does run IronPython but because of the sandboxing
> you can't call into native code, so you can't use Ironclad in the browser.
>
> Despite the places where Ironclad doesn't work, *most* .NET code runs on
> desktops or servers using the standard .NET framework - and this is where
> Ironclad is used. Despite the variety of different JVMs this is an analogous
> situation and I don't see why a port wouldn't be just as useful.

Why not just use CPython? At Google we mix Python and Java using RPCs
intead of mixing runtimes. It works quite well.

> As for Mono; Ironclad *currently* only works on .NET and on Windows. This is
> because it was originally created by Resolver Systems who only develop for
> Windows. There was *some* work by Seo Sanghyeon to port Ironclad to Mono,
> and there is nothing about the techniques Ironclad uses that would prevent
> it working on Mono. (Seo got distracted and the work was uncompleted but
> we're looking for volunteers to pick up porting Ironclad to Mono.)

>> >> > [1] http://code.google.com/p/ironclad/

-- 
--Guido van Rossum

PS. My elbow needs a couple more weeks of rest. Limiting myself to
ultra-short emails.