Python Interpreter question.

[Anon]

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Hello all

 I am a beginner teaching myself python, and I am enjoying it immensely :)
As a language it is great, I real treat to study, I actually find it fun to 
study the language heh

Anyways to the point of my post.....

The other day I was talking with a few others about the age old Interpreted 
v compiled language issue.
Were one person was saying,

"You cannot beat a compiled language."
"Interpreted scripting languages like python are just to slow" he said.

Well I agreed with him that compared to say C or any other compiled 
language, languages like python and
[dare I mention the word here] 'perl',  are slower in some cases;

 "But!!", I said,  "they are also more advantageous in many other ways as 
well."

Well, after a few minutes, another Python champion came into the debate, and 
turned everything on it's head by saying this,

"Python is also a compiled language, and it doesn't use an interpreter, it 
uses the Python VM"

Well I was shocked at first lol, and indignant, telling him that Python does 
indeed have an interpreter and python was an interpreted language, while 
also reminding him that I also prefer python to to other languages as well.

I asked him, "Well what is sitting on my hard drive if not the Python 
Interpreter?"

He replied that it wasn't an interpreter and was the Python compiler and VM 
that did what I was refering to.
He went on to explain that the so called, "Interpreter" I was referring to 
didn't exist, and that what python does when it gets python source, or 
[shudders at the word] "script",  is to compile the python source into 
python byte code and then pass that compiled data to the python VM for 
running.

So my question is this really,

Is all of that true? is it right to say in fact that python doesn't have an 
interpreter, but rather it has a compiler and VM for running the python 
code?

Please forgive me if all this sounds so simple to you experienced types, 
Python is my 1st language, and while I am loving it and learning at a good 
steady rate, python is still my, "first computer language".

Thanks in advance..
Anon




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The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream-
he awoke and found it truth.
John Keats.
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