I don't think Python was designed to call into C, is there some document from the early days claiming that was a major design goal?
1. The only way to integrate with C or other langs in early Pythons was to write interpreter extensions against the internal API. The cffi module seems to have appeared as late as 2012.
2. The Python interpreter API is not an excellent way to extend it, being as it is just whatever happens to be the internals of CPython specifically. There's now an HPython project that is trying to define a JNI equivalent for Python i.e. something vendor neutral, binary compatible and so on.
A language designed to call into C would have had a much easier to use FFI from day one.
1. The only way to integrate with C or other langs in early Pythons was to write interpreter extensions against the internal API. The cffi module seems to have appeared as late as 2012.
2. The Python interpreter API is not an excellent way to extend it, being as it is just whatever happens to be the internals of CPython specifically. There's now an HPython project that is trying to define a JNI equivalent for Python i.e. something vendor neutral, binary compatible and so on.
A language designed to call into C would have had a much easier to use FFI from day one.