Python 2.0 and Stackless

[Michael Hudson]

"Jeff Petkau" <jpet at eskimo.com> writes:

> For normal Python programs (that don't use stackless or uthreads),
> the *only* effect of the stackless patch is to make Python faster
> and more crash-resistant (since you can't overflow the C stack).

Hmm, only "sort-of".  I mean, yes, you won't overflow the C stack, but
unbounded recursion is still a bug; with stackless you'll just sit
there allocating frames until you chew through all available VM and
then bomb out with a MemoryError (and spend about a day printing the
traceback) - or segfault (Python isn't brilliant in low memory
situations).

> So it's a complete win, no downside.

It makes the implementation more complex.  This is a real downside.
That said, I think I'm in favour of it going in - it's just *cool*,
and that's what I like about Python.  Sod technical arguments <wink>.

Cheers,
M.

-- 
  [Perl] combines all the  worst aspects of C and Lisp:  a billion
  different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines 
  the power of C with the readability of PostScript.
                                                     -- Jamie Zawinski