From: graham at sloth.math.uga.edu (Graham Matthews)
Date: 27 May 1999 19:33:38 GMT
Subject: Python 2.0
Message-ID: <7ik6mi$lbk$1@cronkite.cc.uga.edu>
Content-Length: 2017
X-UID: 1956                                                 

I read the following interesting snippet at
	
	http://www.python.org/workshops/1997-10/proceedings/hugunin.html

>6.2. Python in Java's Advantages
>
>Using Java as the underlying systems language for Python has a number of 
>advantages over the current implementation of Python in C.  First and 
>foremost of these in my mind is the opportunity to ride the Java 
>popularity wave and let Python code run everywhere there's a Java VM.  
>It also makes the rich set of portable Java API's available from within 
>Python. 
>
>There is also a nice collection of technical reasons why Java is a 
>superior implementation language for Python than C.  These include 
>Java's binary portability, thread-safety, object-orientation, true 
>exceptions, garbage collection, and friendliness to glue languages. 
>More questions need to be answered before I can make a convincing 
>argument that Python 2.0 should be implemented in Java rather than C.  
>Nonetheless, I think that Java offers many advantages for Python as 
>both an implementation language and a widely available run-time platform. 

What particular intrigues me here is the sentence

>More questions need to be answered before I can make a convincing 
>argument that Python 2.0 should be implemented in Java rather than C.  

I was wondering if this is seriously being considered -- that is
implementing Python 2.0 in Java rather than C. While I understand
that there are some technical challenges with this (notably interfacing
to the existing C implemented extensions), I personally think there
is a lot to be said for compiling Python to the JVM. For example:
access to the Java apis, garbage collection, true compilation, the
ability to write statically typed code (just write that part in Java!),
access to Swing, promoting Python on the coat-tails of Java (free
publicity and hype), etc.

Comments?

graham


-- 
        Thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes
              I thought it was there for good
                 So I never really tried