Last Sync: 2022-10-13 12:00:05

Hardware/Compilers_and_interpreters.md

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+// Base off https://codewithmosh.com/courses/417695/lectures/6781571

Programming_Languages/Python/Python_implementations.md

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+---
+title: Python interpreter
+categories:
+  - Programming Languages
+tags: [python]
+---
+
+# Python interpreter
+
+An implementation of Python:
+
+> means a program or environment which provides support for the execution of programs written in the Python language
+
+There are three main implementations:
+
+- CPython
+  - The default implementation, written in C
+- Jython
+  - Java
+- PyPy
+  - A subset of Python which is faster due to machine code compilation
+
+Python is an interpreted language which means there must be another language to interpret it. In the standard implementation (**CPython**) this is C. When Python runs in this implementation, code written in C converts it to bytecode (so-called because each instruction is [8-bits long](/Hardware/Binary/Binary_units_of_measurement.md)). This is a lower-level language that is not meant to be understood by the CPU (since it is not binary) but rather to be run in the Python virtual machine which is equipped to understand bytecode. The Python Virtual Machine is therefore also known as "bytecode interpreter" or the CPython VM. The machine never directly acesses bytecode, it only works on it 'at a distance' since the operation of the virtual machine is a function of the CPU.
+
+The fact that CPython does not compile to binary means that it can run on a greater variety of hardwares however it is slower than a language that compiles to machine code. PyPy is a solution for this because it is both interpreted and compiled to optimised machine code at run time.
+
+// TODO:
+
+- Notes on Jython and PyPy
+- What are the benefits of using one over the other? e.g. how you write C modules that are understood by Python.