Benjamin Kaplan wrote:
CPython is implemented in C because that's the language chosen. Python
is also implemented in Java, C#, Python, and several other languages.
True enough. If I used Jython, I would want to take a look at those
sources... as well as the Java sources... which were wrtten in, um, C.
And it's not tied to the von Neumann architecture either. Only the
current implementations of it are.
Oh, yes they are. That is the $10,000,000 dollar problem... how to
extricate ourselves from the von Neumann processor. *Everthing* comes
down to that... its hilarious to hear folks talk about lambda the
ultimate (especially those guys on Lambda the Ultimate) when there is no
such thing until such time as we have lambda the hardware architecture.
As long as we are all constrained to funnel data through the von
Neumann ALU, that really is *all* that matters. Another way of saying
this is that no matter how sophisticated our high level coding gets, it
all has to be translated somehow one way or another into von Neumann
codes toggling 1's and 0's on and off in the registers of the von
Neumann ALU.
Reading the CPython sources will show you how CPython works under the
hood, but it has nothing to do with how Python works.
Not conceptually, but practically. For instance, for a C programmer
to see that Python's object references are C void pointers, tells the
newbie Python ( C programmer ) much about how Python considers
variables... as references... to objects.
There are lots
of things that CPython does that "Python" does not. For instance, the
GIL is not a part of Python. Reference counting is not a part of
Python. Caching small integers and strings is not a part of Python.
This is not something I was aware of... caching of small ints is
unique to CPython implementation only ?? I guess I'll have to go read
the "sources" of the other implementations to check that out... ;-)
Why not read the Jython sources instead of the CPython? It's the same
language, after all.
Yep. Agreed. .... on both counts.
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