Suitable for Large Applications?!

[Andreas Jung]

On Sat, Aug 28, 1999 at 10:58:35AM -0400, David Oppenheimer wrote:
> Dear Group,
> 
> I have just started learning Python and would like to hear more
> discussion about its suitability for large multithousand line
> apllications.  On one hand I hear people discussing applications that
> have 10,000 plus lines and on the other I hear people say its really
> only good for small tasks and for modeling.  I'd hate to spend time
> getting real good at this language only to realize that its not well
> suited to large applications...

You can use Python to write large applications and frameworks. We
used Python in several projects as the main implementation
language with several thousands lines of code in several area:
web programming, CGI, databases (Oracle, Mysql, Postgres), Corba,
text processing, SGML/XML processing ...

> Do Python programs need to be converted to C or C++ and then compiled to
> be really useful AND run fast?  Or can you get away with creating a
> freestanding  executable by packaging the bytecode in freeze or another
> program like installer?

:-) depends on the task, the hardware and your algorithms.  In most cases I was
satisfied with the speed of Python and I've never rewritten parts of the code
in C or C++ - however it is possible to write critical parts in C/C++. It's
also possible to pack (freeze) the complete modules in a single binary - if
neccessary. Frozen binaries don't increase the execution speed
very much - it's a nice feature for distributing Python binaries
without the sources.



> What are the real performance issues.  When I hear someone say that
> copiling the Python code took hours and compiling equivalent C code took
> seconds, tends to get a newbie like me less enthused.  Should I take
> back my O'Reilly Python book and get a book on learning C++?!

What code ? The real python sources or the C code that has been
generated by the freeze module from Python ? Don't believe
in fairy-tales - Python is the most usable scripting language
available - Python is suitable both for rapid prototyping and
real-world applications. German users can take a look at my
article in the Linux-Magazin 6/99 "Python - a integration platform
for middleware" (only available in german).

May be the Python with you :-)
Andreas

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   Andreas Jung, Saarbrücker Zeitung Verlag und Druckerei GmbH
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