Hi Mark! Mark Dufour wrote: >>>After nine months of hard work, I am proud to introduce my baby to the >>>world: an experimental Python-to-C++ compiler. >>Wow, looks really cool. But why that instead of Pypy? > > I agree with anyone that a JIT compiler that supports the full Python > semantics (which I thought to be the goal of PyPy?) is probably the > best long term solution. It will really be a lot of work, however, and > in general probably result in slower code than what my compiler > produces, when it works (because of run-time overheads, lack of global > optimizations.)
Although it is one of the goals of the PyPy project is producing a JIT for Python at some point in the future, it also contains a _static_ Python compiler right now: The whole source code of PyPy's interpreter is written in RPython, a restricted subset of the Python language. This subset is choosen in a way to make type inference possible and translate the code to a more low level language (at the moment C and LLVM are supported). This part of PyPy, the translator (http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/translation.html) has quite some similarities to Shed Skin. The kind of code that Shed Skin supports and RPython look quite similar (the biggest difference I see right now is that RPython supports exceptions). This was probably what Paul was referring to. The translator is needed to translate the whole PyPy interpreter into a low level language to get speed back, so Shed Skin and the translator exist for the same reason. > Considering that Shed Skin does what it does in only about 7500 lines > (5500 without C++ implementations of builtins), and is extreme in both > the requirements it puts on the compiler and in the speed of the > resulting code, for me personally it is just a very appealing > alternative to investigate (I like extremes :-)) It should work for > many programs of the type I usually write (algorithms, compilers..), > so it's also a case of scratching my own itch. Shed Skin looks indeed quite impressive. If you are interested in discussing static translation of subsets of Python a bit or are even interested in getting to know PyPy a bit better feel free to contact us (http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/contact.html). Cheers, Carl Friedrich Bolz -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
