what's the point of rpython?

[Rhamphoryncus]

On Jan 16, 5:37 pm, "Brendan Miller" <catph... at catphive.net> wrote:
> So I kind of wanted to ask this question on the pypy mailing list..
> but there's only a pypy-dev list, and I don't want to put noise on the
> dev list.
>
> What's the point of RPython? By this, I don't mean "What is RPython"?
> I get that. I mean, why?

There are some distinct benefits of RPython:

* starts up as real python code, letting you define globals that later
get "snapshotted" into static code
* can be executed using a real python interpreter, getting much more
reliable debugging (but broken rpython code might run fine under
python)
* provides a clear avenue for extension, by adding more python
features

You might argue just having a python syntax is also a benefit, but the
semantics are so different as to more than counteract it.  Add in the
cost of implementing your own compiler... yeah.