One Python 2.1 idea

[Tim Peters]

[Lieven Marchand]
> Perhaps because the community doesn't feel the need for a compiler
> very strongly? I'd say the same effort that got you JPython could get
> you a compiler.

Well, there's the rub:  "the community" doesn't have much to do with it.
JPython wasn't the result of "an effort", it was the result of a Hugunin.
That is, Jim Hugunin got the JPython idea into his head and wouldn't let
anything stop him from doing it.  It was a one-man show driven by personal
muses and demons.  CPython started the same way, but driven by Guido's
personality flaws <wink>.  Nobody yet has gotten an irresistible bug up
their butt wrt a Python compiler, and there has been no organization--
neither in industry nor academia --working on such stuff for Python either.
Perhaps something will fall out of the Microsoft .NET project -- too soon to
say.

> I didn't say it wouldn't be a lot of work. I was reacting to some
> people that feel that because Python is more dynamic than e.g. C it's
> impossible to compile.

Do you hear that often?  I most often hear that Python is *harder* to
compile than C, and that's simply true (taking "compile" to mean "do
something that makes it run really fast", which is what people generally
seem to mean by "compile" in this context).

python-is-to-speed-as-christmas-is-to-cupcakes-ly y'rs  - tim