On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au> wrote: > Eric Snow <ericsnowcurren...@gmail.com> writes: > >> A tracker issue [1] recently got me thinking about what makes >> functions special. > > As you describe, functions are special for your scenario because a > function definition needs to result in executable code as an object. > >> Definition time actually happens during compile time, but it has its >> own label to mark the contrast with execution time. So why do >> functions get this special treatment? > > You answer this question. > >> No other objects have code objects. No other objects in Python have >> this special optimization. > > Yes. The two facts are directly related. > >> Maybe I am missing something, or maybe it is super obvious, but isn't >> this a critical point? > > What is the crisis (“a stark change from one state to another”) that > you're referring to by “a critical point”? > > Yes, functions are different and are treated differently. What's your > question? > >> From the docs, the code objects in of function objects are the latter, >> but the optimization expectation is not clearly indicated. Are there >> other motivations behind code objects that I am missing? Am I wrong >> about the optimization expectation? > > What optimisation expectation? > >> Thoughts? > > I think yours need to be expressed more explicitly; I'm not seeing the > issue that concerns you. >
My point is that functions are special in Python because they provide a built in optimization via the special execution of code objects. I would like to know if it is really that big a deal, and if the optimized execution of code objects is a CPython implementation detail or a specification of the language. -eric > -- > \ “The reason we come up with new versions is not to fix bugs. | > `\ It's absolutely not.” —Bill Gates, 1995-10-23 | > _o__) | > Ben Finney > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
