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Hey, I am a JS dev and don't know a lot about python. Can someone ELI5 what is going on here? Thanks.
by topnde 4y ago
Hey, I am a JS dev and don't know a lot about python. Can someone ELI5 what is going on here? Thanks.
- JrProgrammer 4y agoI think what is happening here is that the python interpreter can be used as an executable. This way you don't have to install python on the host machine and can carry your programs on a USB stick for example. Correct me if I'm wrong
- jabbany 4y agoThe author compiled the Python interpreter as an Actually Portable Executable (APE) file. APE files (usually using a `.com` extension) are single executable files that can be run natively on many major operating systems. Kind of a "polyglot" executable file that most major operating systems just understand natively. The implication is that you can now package Python code as a single file that can be directly run regardless of the operating system the user is on. No installers, no dependencies on what must already be installed, no separate downloads for different operating systems. Just one single file, click and run.
- keithalewis 4y agoPython is not slow enough. You can now give people a collection of bits that will run python even slower on multiple architectures. As a bonus, you cannot use any of the C packages like numpy or pandas that might cause it to run faster.