[Python-ideas] size of the installation of Python on mobile devices

Stefan Behnel stefan_ml at behnel.de
Fri Jul 29 10:48:05 EDT 2016


Serhiy Storchaka schrieb am 29.07.2016 um 14:50:
> On 28.07.16 19:30, Xavier de Gaye wrote:
>> Issue 26852 [1] proposes an enhancement to reduce the size of the Python
>> installation by using a sourceless distribution. It seems that
>> discussion on this problem (the size of the Python installation on
>> mobile devices) should be moved here.
>>
>> IMHO there is no need to debate on the fact that a full install of
>> Python on a mobile device today is a problem.
>>
>> As a reference, here is a raw estimation of the sizes of the different
>> installs:
>>
>>     full install: 111M
>>     without the test suite: 53M
>>     without the test suite and as a sourceless distribution: 23M
>>     same as above but also without ensurepip: 14M
>>
>> It would be useful to find the references to the previous discussions
>> related to sourceless distributions, especially the reasons why their
>> use is discouraged.
> 
> Try to pack the stdlib in the ZIP file and use zipimport.

Speaking of compression, I just saw that the ticket about compressing .pyc
files is still open, so I guess that nothing has been done in that regard.
It still surprises me that they aren't. They are classical write-once,
read-many kind of files, so not compressing them seems counter-intuitive.

https://bugs.python.org/issue22789

Obviously, compressing everything into an archive instead of compressing
each file separately is bound to provide even larger gains, but that
doesn't deal with the fact that some things usually get compiled and
installed later than others.

Stefan




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