What's the status on bytecode?

cbraga has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am designing a new app and I'm in between using C++ and Perl plus a cross-platform GUI toolkit. Naturally I'd prefer Perl, but it wouldn't be convenient to distribute source code away. So what's the status on the bytecode? Last I checked, about two years ago, it was considered unstable for use in production, and now I can't really find a lot about it on the web...

Thanks.

Comment on What's the status on bytecode?

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Re: What's the status on bytecode? by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 17, 2003 at 05:01 UTC
It's considered unstable for use in production. It may never be considered stable for use in production in Perl 5. That said, would PAR be of more use to you?	[reply]
Re: What's the status on bytecode? by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Jul 17, 2003 at 05:08 UTC
The bytecode interfaces haven't really matured much further. Perl5's guts were never intended to accomodate such a feature, so people have been playing with the concept more than they're seriously working on it. If all you need is to package a Perl application, though, you should take a look at PAR, which does a fantastic job of it. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
Re: Protecting source code by simonm (Vicar) on Jul 17, 2003 at 05:49 UTC
As noted above the bytecode efforts never seemed to crystalize. However, there has been progress in source filtering that might address your requirements. See Crypt::License for a pertinent example.	[reply]
Re: What's the status on bytecode? by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jul 17, 2003 at 08:25 UTC
If you intend on distributing bytecode because you want to keep the source a secret, then don't. Even if it would be possible to generate bytecode and run it (it isn't), the byte code can be used to reconstruct the source. Abigail	[reply]


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