On Apr 21, 2009, at 9:26 AM, Stefan Behnel wrote: > Dag Sverre Seljebotn wrote: >> I don't think we have to think of ourselves as in direct competition >> with PyPy (and/or Unladen Swallow). Personally I'm more than happy to >> use pure Python rather than Cython for the kind of things that can be >> sped up by those projects anyway (makes for a shorter compile/run >> cycle). > > I do actually see PyPy as a direct competitor of Cython (much more > than > Jython and IronPython, BTW), as both projects aim to compile Python > code > to fast native code. Currently, we are faster and they are more > feature > complete. But if we can have the cake and eat it, too...
It's also important to note that each has non-intersecting goals on top of making Python faster, and I could see them all being around for a long time. One thing that sets us apart is the ease at which we can integrate existing C (and soon C++/Fortran) code, which is extremely valuable. Our greatest weakness is that we are tied to the non-treadsafe CPython interpreter--my hope is that eventually CPython will be improved to use a concurrent garbage collector and its shipped modules fixed accordingly. (With the current trend of the number of cores increasing faster than the clockspeed, one could dedicate a core to GC alone if speed is a concern as it has been in the past...) >> What I think sets Cython apart is that we add a superset to the >> Python >> language for adding types; which are simply needed in some >> situations. I >> think that is where we "compete". > > That's rather where we are beyond competition. > > >> When PyPy runs as fast as CPython, perhaps PyPy can start >> supporting the >> Cython type annotations (at least the pure Python mode ones); Jython >> could support the same annotations in time, and so on. > > Let's wait and see, but I doubt that there will be a major interest in > doing that. I actually find it more important for Cython to gain type > inference mechanisms that lift the requirement for defining types > in the > first place, at least for standard use cases. +1, inference is something else that would be really nice to finally have. There was enough interest, however, to add function signature type annotations. - Robert _______________________________________________ Cython-dev mailing list [email protected] http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/cython-dev
