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Comment by 0xpgm

20 hours ago

For a long time Guido wanted CPython to remain simple, as the reference implementation.

Probably also during the 2 to 3 migration, but that goal appears to have now been abandoned.

I wonder how the authors of other implementations like pypy will be able to keep up as the reference implementation becomes more and more complex.

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0xpgm

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Pxtl  19 hours ago

> the reference implementation.

The problem was he exposed too much of the implementation into the language itself, destroying its ability to be a simple reference implementation that others could re-implement.

  • mohamedkoubaa  19 hours ago

    This is slowly being addressed now, each version of Python sees the c API become more opaque.

    • jsmith45  16 hours ago

      That's at best a partial fix for the API side. Python side CPython sill exposes a LOT of implementation details, and as a result occasionally projects will choose to rely on some of these details. Then other implementations need to decide whether to also pick the same implementations details and expose them, or use different details, and lack compatibility with any library that depended upon them.

      The python documentation has historically also not been especially clear at distinguishing between what the language guarantees, vs what is just implementation details of the cPython implementation. So even if libraries wanted to try to avoid depending on implementation specifics, it isn't always clear what those are.

      The net result is that for the end user python the language is effectively: whatever cpython does. This really, really discourages creating alternate implementations, as the only way to be an alternative implementation with good compatibility is to be a living fork of cpython, constantly merging in all the changes from it, while also maintaining your improvements.

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