to code or not to code?

[Mike Cantrell]

The same thing goes for Perl.You can use the module straight from the shell
if you know what you are doing:

perl -MO=CC[,OPTIONS] foo.pl

This will translate the code (along with the perl interpreter) to C code and
you can then compile it with your standard C compiler. You can also use the
frontend to the module wich will also autocompile it with it's best guess
for compiler flags and such with the perlcc command.

see these pages:
http://www.perl.com/pub/doc/manual/html/lib/B/CC.html
http://www.perl.com/pub/doc/manual/html/utils/perlcc.html

Regards,
Mike Cantrell

> Just a reminder, Python programs CAN be compiled into executables using
> the "freeze" script that (I believe) comes with Python.  Freeze takes a
> Python program, bundles it together with a small-as-possible Python
> installation, and shoots out C code, which is then compiled into an
> executable.  Pros: Allows for installation on computers without Python
> installed, and allows for source code to be hidden (if that's your thing),
> and it's faster.  Cons: Executable is platform dependant, and the
> executable is fairly large (I've never gotten one that was below 1 mb).