We have succeeded in creating a useful extension to Python that enables Amoeba server writers to test and experiment with their server in a much more interactive manner. We hope that this facility will add to the popularity of AIL amongst Amoeba programmers.
Python's extensibility was proven convincingly by the exercise (performed by the second author) of adding the Stubcode interpreter to Python. Standard data abstraction techniques are used to insulate extension modules from details of the rest of the Python interpreter. In the case of the Stubcode interpreter this worked well enough that it survived a major overhaul of the main Python interpreter virtually unchanged.
On the other hand, adding a new back-end to AIL turned out to be quite a bit of work. One problem, specific to Python, was to be expected: Python's variable-size data types differ considerably from the C-derived data model that AIL favors. Two additional problems we encountered were the complexity of the interface between AIL's second and third phases, and a number of remaining bugs in the second phase that surfaced when the implementation of the Python back-end was tested. The bugs have been tracked down and fixed, but nothing has been done about the complexity of the interface.