David Cournapeau wrote: > Martijn Faassen wrote: >> Yes, this one would be a major challenge. If you can crack it and the >> PyPy interpreter offers another benefit (an obvious one is speed), you >> will be in awesome position. If not, the other benefits will have to >> weigh more strongly. This is definitely one to evolve slowly over time >> if it's possible at all.
> I don't understand the C++ part. How many useful python modules use C++ > ? For a start, my understanding is that python itself (interprter + > stdlib) do not use C++ at all. Wrapping C++ in any language other than > itself is a pain anyway :) I took "wrapping a major C++ library using ctypes" as an example of the complexities involved. If PyPy *doesn't* offer a way to reuse existing CPython extensions, this means it'll have to be done again. As someone who started with lxml, I can tell you that wrapping a major C library with Pyrex properly is also a lot of hard work - making garbage collection work as a Python programmer expects is a huge challenge. Doing that again for PyPy would feel like a waste of effort. > I am personally interested in two things: being able to use any pure > python extension, and numerical code (I am a heavy user and sometimes > contributor to numpy/scipy). I don't think I am alone in this niche. For > example, someone on the numpy-discussion list asked about being able to > use numpy from iron python: > > http://groups.google.com/group/c-extensions-for-ironpython/browse_thread/thread/88102263f8586fd0 > > what can be done about that ? Since I don't understand how pypy can > use/intend to use c-based extensions (I thought ctypes was the way, but > it looks like I misunderstood things), I am not sure what the > possibilities are *now*. I think the minimum PyPy will do is make it possible to wrap C-based extensions using something like ctypes. As far as I understand that work hasn't been completed yet. The original post was also talking about the possible maximum, which is to support arbitrary third-party extensions that bind to non-python libraries, such as NumPy, pygame and lxml. Regards, Martijn _______________________________________________ [email protected] http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/pypy-dev
