[Python-ideas] Fwd: Adding iOS/Android support to Python

[Terry Reedy]

On 10/25/2014 7:32 PM, Russell Keith-Magee wrote:
>
> On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 3:36 PM, Todd
> <toddrjen at gmail.com
> <mailto:toddrjen at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Oct 25, 2014 4:22 AM, "Russell Keith-Magee"
>     <russell at keith-magee.com
>     <mailto:russell at keith-magee.com>> wrote:
>     >  3) Disabling certain modules on mobile platforms. Supporting modules like linuxaudiodev, ossaudiodev, readline, curses, idle and tkinter on mobile platforms doesn't make much sense; modules likes bsddb and bz2 are difficult to support due to library dependencies; and the need for modules like multiprocessing is arguable (and difficult to support on mobile). Even providing a Python executable/shell is arguable for these platforms.
>
>     I would definitely be extremely interested in a python shell in
>     android.  One thing I feel are lacking on android are good advanced
>     mathematical tools and and python shell with appropriate libraries
>     could make a very powerful open-source tool for that.  There have
>     been some attempts at that already.
>
> Yes - and (to the best of my knowledge) none of them provide the default
> Python shell. They're custom user interfaces, using native system
> controls, that provide a shell-like UI. What I'm talking about here is
> the literal "python.exe" build target - the one that is an executable
> that starts and expects to attach to stdin/stdout. *That* executable
> isn't practical on Android *or* iOS, because neither platform has the
> concept of a "console" in the traditional Unix sense of the word.
>
>     I would also differentiate android and iOs more.  Android seems to
>     be betting on multi-core performance while iOs seems to be betting
>     on single-chore performance. So while multiprocessing may not make
>     much sense on iOs, I think it may be more sense on Android,
>     especially if they move from 4 to 8 cores.
>
> Firstly - I don't know what gave you the impression Apple devices aren't
> multicore - every Apple processor since the A5 (introduced in the iPhone
> 4S and iPad 2) has been at least dual core, and the A8X in the newest
> iPads is triple core.
>
> Secondly, if you're assuming "multicore" automatically means
> "mathematical powerhouse", you're mistaken. If you're planning on doing
> serious mathematical heavy lifting on a phone... well, you've already
> made your first mistake :-)
>
>     Similarly, ultimately android is Linux-based, so things like
>     readline should work, and it seems others have been able to get it
>     to work, and bz2 seems to work fine on third-party android file
>     managers.
>
> iOS is Posix under the hood as well. My point was that readline and
> curses make a whole lot of assumptions about the type of terminal you're
> using, and if you're writing a halfway decent UI for a mobile platform,
> you'd probably be better served throwing those tools overboard in
> preference for something that takes native UI controls into account.
>
> As for bz2 - I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work on Android (or
> iOS either, for that matter); I was more flagging the fact that it has
> binary dependencies which need to be resolved, and external dependencies
> complicate the cross-compilation process.
>
> More broadly, as a result of both these points, I was trying to gauge
> the extent to which "complete availability of all Python modules" would
> be considered a requirement of any official effort to port Python to
> Android and iOS.
>
> Yours,
> Russ Magee %-)
>
>
>
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-- 
Terry Jan Reedy