Python bytecode compatibility between interpreter versions

[Jon Perez]

Andrew MacIntyre wrote:


 > - Python has always been specified in terms of the language, with a
 >   portable reference interpreter implementation for that language (which
 >   just happens to compile to bytecode, and save that bytecode to disk
 >   as an optimisation).
 >
 > IOW, the bytecode is an implementation detail for _one_ interpreter
 > implementation.
 >
 > This becomes obvious when you consider the possibilities associated
 > with Jython, which could (already does?) compile Python source to jar
 > files directly.

Contrary to what you seem to be implying here, Guido never expressly designed
Python to be easily portable to run on top of other bytecode implementations.
Jython was a very difficult feat to pull and the same goes (probably moreso)
for Python.NET.