Why Python is like BASIC ... java "vs" python

[Alex Martelli]

Tim Roberts wrote:
        ...
> and compiled languages is important; it is perfectly valid to say that
> "BASIC, Python and Perl are usually implemented with interpreters, whereas
> Java, C and C++ are usually implemented with compilers".  In that one way,

It may be "valid" for some definition of the word "valid" (it seems to
respect the rules of English syntax, for example).  It's definitely
peculiar if it's meant to assert truths about the real world, though.

The typical implementations of Java process source code into bytecode.
Later, the bytecode is interpreted by a 'virtual machine' (a bytecode
interpreter).

The typical implementations of Python process source code into bytecode.
Later, the bytecode is interpreted by a 'virtual machine' (a bytecode
interpreter).

It seems to me that this is a very good example of why "the distinction
between interpreted and compiled *languages*", far from being "important",
is utter, total, and absolute bunk.  It shows reasonably clearly why
the issue is strictly with implementations and absolutely not with
languages (Java as handled by gcc 3.whatever is [meant to be] just
the same language, but, due exclusively to an implementation specific
choice, gets compiled down to machine-code; Python uses very different
bytecodes -- one of them, as it happens, exactly that which is most
often associated with Java -- in the two most widespread current
implementations, Jython and Classic Python; ...).

I'm not too sure what's being discussed on this thread (assuming
for the sake of argument that anything at all IS being discussed),
as I'm mostly off c.l.p these days, but this is the sort of assertion
that it hurts my liver to leave unchallenged (and my liver is in a
frail enough state these days that I can't well risk subjecting
it to such further stresses).


Alex