[Python-Dev] More optimisation ideas (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Mon Feb 1 11:54:41 EST 2016

On Feb 01, 2016, at 11:40 AM, R. David Murray wrote:

Well, Brett said it would be optional, though perhaps the above paragraph is asking about doing it in our Windows build. But the linux distros might make also use the option if it exists, so the question is very meaningful. However, you'd have to ask the distro if the source would be shipped in the linux case, and I'd guess not in most cases.

It's very likely the .py files would still be shipped, but perhaps in a -dev package that isn't normally installed.

I don't know about anyone else, but on my own development systems it is not that unusual for me to edit the stdlib files (to add debug prints) while debugging my own programs. Freeze would definitely interfere with that. I could, of course, install a separate source build on my dev system, but I thought it worth mentioning as a factor.

I do this too, though usually in a VM or chroot and not in my live system. A very common situation for me though is pdb stepping through my own code and landing in -or passing through- stdlib.

On the other hand, if the distros go the way Nick has (I think) been advocating, and have a separate 'system python for system scripts' that is independent of the one installed for user use, having the system-only python be frozen and sourceless would actually make sense on a couple of levels.

Yep, we've talked about it in Debian-land too, but never quite gotten around to doing anything. Certainly I'd like to see some consistency among Linux distros there (i.e. discussed on linux-sig@).

But even with system scripts, I do need to step through them occasionally. If it were a matter of changing a shebang or invoking the script with a different Python (e.g. /usr/bin/python3s vs. /usr/bin/python3) to get the full unpacked source, that would be fine.

Cheers, -Barry

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