[Tutor] Will there ever be a native python compiler to create pure exe and dll

[Alan Gauld]

Responding to the Q in the subject...

Probably not since pure EXE and DLL's are going the way of the Dodo. 
Microsoft's new .NET environment works exactly like Python in that 
code gets compiled into an intermediate language and executed by 
an interpreter. Thus its far more likely that someone will produce 
a Python to .NET compiler, in fact I believe I read somewhere that 
its already being worked on. At that point Python will then operate 
exactly like C#, VB.NET, Java, etc etc.

In fact Python's structure, like most dynamic languages makes it 
hard to produce a pure EXE compiler. One of the reasons Python is 
so powerful is precisely because it has the ability to dynamically 
change its behaviour, but that is very difficult to compile 
effectively. (How do you compile an exec or eval statement for 
example? Especially if the string being evaluated creates a 
new class, say.)

Other examples where major languages have proved difficult to 
compile into "pure executables" (ie no embedded interpreter) are 
Smalltalk, Prolog, Lisp and VB. 
(Now the Lisp folks will start to complain - sorreee! :-)

Alan G.