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Python JIT project was asked to pause development

discuss.python.org

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Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#11

Post by 12398761 »

That was kind of overdue. The project started five years ago while massively overpromising.

They should perhaps have kept it in a separate branch back then, but now is the next best time.

CPython's selling point was that it is simple, fast enough with C extensions and the code was accessible. Complicating the code base for occasional 50% speedups (and regressions ...) just isn't worth it. There are so many other languages that fill that need.

Now, I hope that the PEP does not overpromise again and is accepted because of Instagram pressure. Instagram can keep its own JIT fork or switch to PHP, Go or whatever.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#12

Post by _old_dude_ »

jhayward wrote: post #8

> While the intent is not to call for competing proposals, we believe that now is a good time to discuss and propose alternative proposals as well. If I were a contributor I would read such language as saying "we have no respect for you or your intelligence, so we'll just straight up gaslight you and expect you to accept it." The dictum can't be read literally - it has to be read like the manipulative, narcissist-spe…

I agree. And the next section is very clear that they want to kill the project.

  > For example, rather than proposing one single concrete JIT implementation,
  > it may make more sense for the PEP to describe a JIT infrastructure that
  > can support multiple implementation strategies.
  > Since many different and promising JIT tracing approaches continue to be proposed,
  > we believe the infrastructure should make it easy to experiment with and evaluate
  > those approaches within CPython rather than be highly coupled with a single strategy.
Allowing multiple strategies is far harder and as far as I know, JIT tracing is still unproven.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#14

Post by IshKebab »

Qem wrote: post #2

> For that reason, the Steering Council is formally requesting a Standards Track PEP be authored that the community can discuss and the Steering Council can formally accept (or reject), making the case for the JIT as a supported, non-experimental part of CPython: its guarantees, its maintenance commitments, and its impact on redistributors. I didn't notice the current PEP was a provisional one. Hope the new one gets…

Sure but best case 15% faster clearly isn't worth the complexity of a JIT. It really needs to be at least twice as fast. Pypy pretty much achieves that on average.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#15

Post by Qem »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #10

What a shame it will receive a halt when they where starting to make progress I know that after submitting the pep it will go back to development. But t would have been better to just keep the development and the pep for an actual release or continue and if gets rejected ask them to stop

> What a shame it will receive a halt when they where starting to make progress I know that after submitting the pep it will go back to development.

To be fair, the apparent lack of progress of the JIT before was in part due to the same team improving the base interpreter by 40-50% between 3.10 and 3.14. The JIT implementation was pursuing a moving target. It was not some static milestone. Kudos for them.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#16

Post by Qem »

IshKebab wrote: post #14
Qem wrote: post #2

> For that reason, the Steering Council is formally requesting a Standards Track PEP be authored that the community can discuss and the Steering Council can formally accept (or reject), making the case for the JIT as a supported, non-experimental part of CPython: its guarantees, its maintenance commitments, and its impact on redistributors. I didn't notice the current PEP was a provisional one. Hope the new one gets…

Sure but best case 15% faster clearly isn't worth the complexity of a JIT. It really needs to be at least twice as fast. Pypy pretty much achieves that on average.

15% faster on top of a base interpreter that itself got 40%-50% faster on the same timeframe.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#17

Post by bob001 »

OutOfHere wrote: post #6

Losing development momentum for a beancounting reason like this one is a sure way to kill a project. It works every time. Once development is halted, it is very difficult to pick it back up.

Python isn't a side project to yolo on. Updating the GC without a PEP caused massive issues for actual people using Python. If you want to impact software used by millions of developers then you better be willing to handle a bit of process.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#18

Post by bob001 »

mike_hock wrote: post #5
Qem wrote: post #2

> For that reason, the Steering Council is formally requesting a Standards Track PEP be authored that the community can discuss and the Steering Council can formally accept (or reject), making the case for the JIT as a supported, non-experimental part of CPython: its guarantees, its maintenance commitments, and its impact on redistributors. I didn't notice the current PEP was a provisional one. Hope the new one gets…

Kind of a shit move to suddenly pull the rug once they've finally gotten it working. Should have been kept out of main from the start.

I suspect the recent "we updated the GC without a PEP and it went live and caused massive issues and we need an emergency point release revert" pushed for a greater degree of process overall.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#19

Post by Retr0id »

jhayward wrote: post #8

> While the intent is not to call for competing proposals, we believe that now is a good time to discuss and propose alternative proposals as well. If I were a contributor I would read such language as saying "we have no respect for you or your intelligence, so we'll just straight up gaslight you and expect you to accept it." The dictum can't be read literally - it has to be read like the manipulative, narcissist-spe…

I think this is uncharitable, it's not like they're inventing new requirements that weren't there before. The PEP process has existed the whole time.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#20

Post by bob001 »

jhayward wrote: post #8

> While the intent is not to call for competing proposals, we believe that now is a good time to discuss and propose alternative proposals as well. If I were a contributor I would read such language as saying "we have no respect for you or your intelligence, so we'll just straight up gaslight you and expect you to accept it." The dictum can't be read literally - it has to be read like the manipulative, narcissist-spe…

I suspect there were people who had alternative proposals which got implicitly blocked by this 5 year effort. Letting a subgroup run wild without proper process is not good for a project this large.
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