Python and Java: The Best of Both Worlds

This paper describes a new working implementation of the Python language; built on top of the Java language and run-time environment. This is in contrast to the existing implementation of Python, which has been built on top of the C language and run-time environment. Implementing Python in Java has a number of limitations when compared to the current implementation of Python in C. These include about 1.7X slower performance, portability limited by Java VM availability, and lack of compatibility with existing C extension modules. The advantages of Java over C as an implementation language include portability of binary executables, object-orientation in the implementation language to match object-orientation in Python, true garbage collection, run-time exceptions instead of segmentation faults, and the ability to automatically generate wrapper code for arbitrary Java libraries.