Over the past few years, many have thought of the concept of using Python, instead of javascript, for client-side programming. Guido van Rossum, during his keynote talk in PyCon 2012, said that "Introducing a new language to replace javascript, is just such an incredibly hard political problem..". During this talk I briefly introduced Brython. Brython's goal is to replace Javascript with Python as the scripting language for web browsers. But lets think about it for a moment.. Is this really what we want? :)

1. Brython www.brython.info
Spyros Ioakeimidis
spyros.ioakeimidis.info
PyGrunn June 2013
Python in the client-side
of programming

2. What the ****
are they thinking?
Brython???

3. But How?

4. Step 1: Read Code

5. 1
parses Python source codebrython():

6. 1
ajax call for, e.g.
<script type=‘text/python’ src=‘example.py’></script>
parses Python source codebrython():

7. Step 2: Syntax Analysis

8. 2
abstract tree is built and transformedpy2js():

9. 2
the moment to deal with errors
abstract tree is built and transformedpy2js():

10. Step 3: Generate Javascript

11. recursively creates the javascript
code out of the abstract tree
3
to_js():

12. Step 4: Execute Javascript

13. 4
eval()

14. Characteristics

15. numLOC(brython) ≈≈ numLOC(jQuery)
Less Code?

16. import
works with ajax calls

17. import
works with ajax calls
from the same directory of the calling script

18. import
works with ajax calls
from the same directory of the calling script
packages are not supported, only modules

19. white spaces and
indentation matter! :)
.min

20. Compatibility
✌
write Javascript, jQuery code
using JSObject()
Javascript

21. Compatibility
browsers

22. ajax
ajax is pretty easy to use (as it should be)
using ajax()

23. missing...
some (not so commonly used) Python functions
with keyword is not implemented yet
no cookie implementation

24. more...
no noticeable difference in efficiency
HTML5 and SVG support :)

25. more...
still too immature
default use of ajax
undocumented (still to early though :)

26. The simplest Task app ever!
to be continued...

27. SO?

28. It doesn’t always feel like
writing Python code

29. Nothing yet that can distinguish
it from existing solutions

30. “Introducing a new language to replace
Javascript, is just such an incredibly
hard political problem...
Guido Van Rossum
@PyCon 2012

31. I enjoyed much more writing Python
than Javascript :)

32. Thank you!