4 ms·

Couldn't you just sent the bytecode .pyc instead to fix the no minification issue?

meredydd 6y ago
This is exactly what BeeWare's Batavia does: compile to bytecode server-side, then run a remarkably small interpreter in the browser. This is a substantial win: parsing is a CPU hog, and Brython's architecture does it every time the page loads. That said, in order to support `eval` and friends, you still need a full-fat compiler in the browser. So the best route is probably to use a full-service Python->JS compiler, but compile most of the code ahead of time. That's where we're heading with Anvil (we use https://skulpt.org https://skulpt.org for the client side, but it's the same principle). My colleague wrote up a pretty wide-ranging comparison of browser-based Python interpreters. It describes how (and why) Brython, Batavia, Skulpt, Transcrypt, and Pyodide differ, and the tradeoffs they're chasing: https://anvil.works/blog/python-in-the-browser-talk https://anvil.works/blog/python-in-the-browser-talk
- StavrosK 6y ago
  In twenty years of professional Python development, I've never used eval once. I'm not saying nobody ever needs it, but it's a niche feature that the vast majority of programs can do without, and is probably not worth the tradeoff.
  - jononor 6y ago
    You probably have used a Python REPL though? Either on commandline or in iPython shell or similar. This relies on eval type functionality somewhere in the chain.
  - _ZeD_ 6y ago
    have you ever used namedtuple? then you have: https://bugs.python.org/issue3974 https://bugs.python.org/issue3974
    - duckerude 6y ago
      namedtuple could be implemented without exec/eval, and nowadays, it almost is. This is the only part left that uses it, to create the constructor: https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/collections/__init__.py#L430 https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/collection... Even there it's not strictly necessary. You could accomplish the same thing with a variadic function that does its own argument parsing, it'd just be slower and not play as well with reflection. So you could port it to a Python implementation without eval().
  - danijar 6y ago
    It's necessary if you want to offer an interactive Python shell in the browser, e.g. for websites that teach programming or otherwise use programming as a means of user interaction.
    - airstrike 6y ago
      Which is like 0.0001% of the web
weego 6y ago
This is just a python interpreter. pyc is useless here
- pletnes 6y ago
  The interpreter interprets bytecode, i.e .pyc
cellularmitosis 6y ago
Whitespace isn't the important part of minification. Content-encoding: gzip can handle that.

This is exactly what BeeWare's Batavia does: compile to bytecode server-side, then run a remarkably small interpreter in the browser. This is a substantial win: parsing is a CPU hog, and Brython's architecture does it every time the page loads. That said, in order to support `eval` and friends, you still need a full-fat compiler in the browser. So the best route is probably to use a full-service Python->JS compiler, but compile most of the code ahead of time. That's where we're heading with Anvil (we use https://skulpt.org https://skulpt.org for the client side, but it's the same principle). My colleague wrote up a pretty wide-ranging comparison of browser-based Python interpreters. It describes how (and why) Brython, Batavia, Skulpt, Transcrypt, and Pyodide differ, and the tradeoffs they're chasing: https://anvil.works/blog/python-in-the-browser-talk https://anvil.works/blog/python-in-the-browser-talk

StavrosK 6y ago
In twenty years of professional Python development, I've never used eval once. I'm not saying nobody ever needs it, but it's a niche feature that the vast majority of programs can do without, and is probably not worth the tradeoff.
- jononor 6y ago
  You probably have used a Python REPL though? Either on commandline or in iPython shell or similar. This relies on eval type functionality somewhere in the chain.
- _ZeD_ 6y ago
  have you ever used namedtuple? then you have: https://bugs.python.org/issue3974 https://bugs.python.org/issue3974
  - duckerude 6y ago
    namedtuple could be implemented without exec/eval, and nowadays, it almost is. This is the only part left that uses it, to create the constructor: https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/collections/__init__.py#L430 https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/collection... Even there it's not strictly necessary. You could accomplish the same thing with a variadic function that does its own argument parsing, it'd just be slower and not play as well with reflection. So you could port it to a Python implementation without eval().
- danijar 6y ago
  It's necessary if you want to offer an interactive Python shell in the browser, e.g. for websites that teach programming or otherwise use programming as a means of user interaction.
  - airstrike 6y ago
    Which is like 0.0001% of the web

weego 6y ago

This is just a python interpreter. pyc is useless here

pletnes 6y ago
The interpreter interprets bytecode, i.e .pyc

cellularmitosis 6y ago

Whitespace isn't the important part of minification. Content-encoding: gzip can handle that.