Re: [rox-users] Time To Drop The Snake?

[Neil G. <Le...@sc...>]

On Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:01:58 +0100, Mark Williams wrote:

> ROX desktop would be a lot lighter if it wasn't for the couple of
> hundred pounds of Python dependencies it carries.  I mean, really, it's
> like Keira Knightley habitually walking around in a fat suit...
> 
> On purpose.
> 

The problem is, people like working in Python.  They've made something 
that works.

I'd be more than pleased to use something that is more lightweight if it 
did the same job ok.  Are you volunteering to do the work to make that 
happen?

Because I have been working on the OLPC XO I have been extremely 
conscious of resource usage and looked at many options.

For those that want a garbage collecting language that offers much of the 
flexibility of python I would suggest looking at Haxe and NekoVM. Which 
seems lightweight for both the compiler and virtual machine.

TinyPy is also a possibility.  It offers much of python in a much smaller 
(but slower) package.  If existing python code can run under tinypy with 
minimal modification it may be an acceptable path.

The problem here though is bindings.  Both Haxe/NekoVM and TinyPy have a 
fraction of the bindings to libraries and apis that Python has.  Indeed 
this quite possibly accounts for a substantial proportion of the size of 
python.
Adding Bindings to either Haxe/NekoVM or TinyPy is not a difficult task 
but you run the risk of finishing the job and fining you have something 
as big as Python.