very large dictionary

[Terry Reedy]

Simon Strobl wrote:
>
> Well, as I was using Python, I did not expect to have to care about
> the language's internal affairs that much. I thought I could simply do
> always the same no matter how large my files get. In other words, I
> thought Python was really scalable.

Python the language is indefinitely scalable.  Finite implementations 
are not.  CPython is a C program compiled to a system executable.  Most 
OSes run executables with a fairly limited call stack space.

CPython programs are, when possible, cached as .pyc files.  The 
existence and format of .pyc's is an internal affair of the CPython 
implementation.  They are most definitely not a language requirement or 
language feature.

Have you tried feeding multigigabytes source code files to other 
compilers?  Most, if not all, could be broken by the 'right' big-enough 
code.

tjr