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PEP 3146: Merge Unladen Swallow into CPython

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Re: PEP 3146: Merge Unladen Swallow into CPython

#4
post #3

I want a pony from Guido too

Surprisingly on-topic :-) For the curious, the reference is within this article: "We seek the following from the BDFL:

Approval for the overall concept of adding a just-in-time compiler to CPython, following the design laid out below.

Permission to continue working on the just-in-time compiler in the CPython source tree.

Permission to eventually merge the just-in-time compiler into the py3k branch once all blocking issues have been addressed.

A pony."

Re: PEP 3146: Merge Unladen Swallow into CPython

#7

It's unfortunate that they never hit their original 5x performance boost. Hopefully acceptance into CPython will help.

The performance increase is still notable though - I would like to see that static LLVM link changed; I like python for its size, speed, and expressiveness.

Re: PEP 3146: Merge Unladen Swallow into CPython

#8

It's unfortunate that they never hit their original 5x performance boost. Hopefully acceptance into CPython will help.

So is the goal to gain resources by becoming part of CPython? It seems like the small performance increases they got are completely overshadowed by the additional memory requirements. I don't pretend to understand the mainline Python development cycle, but this surely doesn't seem mature enough to justify declaring it as "the way forward".

Re: PEP 3146: Merge Unladen Swallow into CPython

#9
I think that a JIT compiler will eventually be added to python, so the sooner this happens the better. The new generation of javascript engines (e.g. V8) have shown us how fast dynamic code can be; there is no reason python can't achieve this either. I also think the swallow team has gone about this in the right way: presenting what they've done, and asking for what needs to happen before it can become mainline. They obviously value this merge, so kudos to google.

On the other hand, performance so far is quite underwhelming. Certainly, as a PEP, this is by no means intended to be merged now, but to provide a roadmap for the future. Here's to hoping they can remove their remaining roadblocks.

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