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I don't know much about compilers and runtimes but how come there are SO MANY of them for Python. Is there something about Python that makes it so easy to write

I don't know much about compilers and runtimes but how come there are SO MANY of them for Python. Is there something about Python that makes it so easy to write runtimes for it?

bane 12y ago
I think it's because lots of people write lots of code in python, but then end up with performance problems at some point and try to tackle those. Have a nice regular language makes it relative easy to rewrite a runtime to scratch your itch. I suspect we would have seen this more with languages like Perl, except Perl is virtually impossible to parse.
bkeroack 12y ago
I think it's largely because while a lot of people really love the language, they struggle with the performance and scaling issues that arise with the standard CPython implementation.
dalke 12y ago
I think it's a matter of numbers. There are a lot of people who use Python. (https://blog.pythonanywhere.com/67/ https://blog.pythonanywhere.com/67/ estimates in the low millions.) Some of them like to work on alternate implementations of Python. I think Python is average in this respect. By comparison, here's an incomplete list of C compilers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers#C_compilers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers#C_compilers and you can also look at the list of Pascal compilers.
mhd 12y ago
Popularity and a syntax that can be parsed, plus being widely taught. Pretty much the same reason why we had plenty of Pascal compilers back in the days. And quite unlike why we have that many JavaScript transpilers. A few of the compilers might be running on the AST, and thus have no complete alternative implementeation. A good module support for that helps, although it's still not close to VM-based languages like Java.
njharman 12y ago
Python is the best "glue" language. Large 3rd party libs, easily readable/writable (even by non-programmers), ld (it predates Java), established, great user community. So, people in different realms (MSoft IronPython, JVM/Enterprise Jython, restofus CPython, scientists/performance Cython/PyPy,Stackless,Psyco, academics/experimenters many more) all want to use it and make versions that integrate with their tools.

I don't know much about compilers and runtimes but how come there are SO MANY of them for Python. Is there something about Python that makes it so easy to write runtimes for it?

bane 12y ago

I think it's because lots of people write lots of code in python, but then end up with performance problems at some point and try to tackle those. Have a nice regular language makes it relative easy to rewrite a runtime to scratch your itch. I suspect we would have seen this more with languages like Perl, except Perl is virtually impossible to parse.

bkeroack 12y ago

I think it's largely because while a lot of people really love the language, they struggle with the performance and scaling issues that arise with the standard CPython implementation.

dalke 12y ago

I think it's a matter of numbers. There are a lot of people who use Python. (https://blog.pythonanywhere.com/67/ https://blog.pythonanywhere.com/67/ estimates in the low millions.) Some of them like to work on alternate implementations of Python. I think Python is average in this respect. By comparison, here's an incomplete list of C compilers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers#C_compilers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers#C_compilers and you can also look at the list of Pascal compilers.

mhd 12y ago

Popularity and a syntax that can be parsed, plus being widely taught. Pretty much the same reason why we had plenty of Pascal compilers back in the days. And quite unlike why we have that many JavaScript transpilers. A few of the compilers might be running on the AST, and thus have no complete alternative implementeation. A good module support for that helps, although it's still not close to VM-based languages like Java.

njharman 12y ago

Python is the best "glue" language. Large 3rd party libs, easily readable/writable (even by non-programmers), ld (it predates Java), established, great user community. So, people in different realms (MSoft IronPython, JVM/Enterprise Jython, restofus CPython, scientists/performance Cython/PyPy,Stackless,Psyco, academics/experimenters many more) all want to use it and make versions that integrate with their tools.