Ah, it's phc (http://phpcompiler.org) for Python. Excellent!
Nuitka — A Python Compiler
21–30 of 34 posts
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#2250% speed up, or even 2x, 3x matters to a few niches and users. But for the vast majority it's not significant enough to change/accept limitations (not 2.7/3.1)/accept risks (is this as tested/supported as CPython). We'll just wait for CPython's regular speed improvements and/or effective processing power to increase another order of magnitude.
Research like this is very important. I just don't think it's wise to be viewing it as a silver bullet for use in production.
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#23I sometimes see people ask about translating a language like Python to Common Lisp (or another language that can be compiled) as a kind of optimization. The problem, in general, isn't that Python and languages like it don't have a compiler, it's that the semantics of the language are hostile to good performance by traditional means of compilation. To do what the programmer requests requires doing things at runtime th…
> The problem, in general, isn't that Python and languages like it don't have a compiler, it's that the semantics of the language are hostile to good performance by traditional means of compilation.
You are correct, but this approach (using libpython) is probably as good as you can do for static compilation. I did my PhD on a very similar compiler, just for PHP (phc - http://phpcompiler.org). Something like 90% of variables had known static types (and that excludes results of arithmetic which could be either reals or ints).
The best approach would be a hybrid. Throw as much static stuff at it as you can, then encode it for a JIT to use later. That's what I'm planning when I (eventually) get round to writing my language.
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#24Personally I have more faith in JITs for dynamic languages such as Python. It just seems a more natural match. That said, I'm sure there are many Python programs out there that are essencially static. Did anybody else notice the large number of compilers/interpreters/tools built for python in comparison to many other languages out there? I think it might partly be the advantage of having an easy to parse language wit…
"I think it might partly be the advantage of having an easy to parse language with well defined semantics." Either that or the combination of a popular language and poor performance
I think you're right about the popular language part. But also important is that it's popular amongst really talented hackers. By contrast, PHP is a million times more popular than Python, but has almost nobody building tools for it. The overlap between the type of people who like PHP and those who have the ability and desire to hack on tools for it, is very very small.
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm confused by this. I thought the license used by a compiler had no effect on the licenses that could be used for programs compiled by it. If the author of Nuitka is claiming that software compiled by Nuitka is in fact a derivative work of Nuitka, that is indeed very problematic.
That was my immediate assumption too, but part of the compiler's output is going to be some kind of a runtime library. If that itself is GPL 3 and the code generated by the compiler statically links to it, then I'm pretty sure a case could be made that the compiler's output is a derivitive work. Kind of sneaky and non intuitive, though. This is all way out of my area of expertise, so take it with a grain of salt.
At a very quick glance, I think he's using libpython as the run-time library. However, there is probably some code that would propagate the license, so careful attention needs to be paid there.
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#26I sometimes see people ask about translating a language like Python to Common Lisp (or another language that can be compiled) as a kind of optimization. The problem, in general, isn't that Python and languages like it don't have a compiler, it's that the semantics of the language are hostile to good performance by traditional means of compilation. To do what the programmer requests requires doing things at runtime th…
> The problem, in general, isn't that Python and languages like it don't have a compiler, it's that the semantics of the language are hostile to good performance by traditional means of compilation. You are correct, but this approach (using libpython) is probably as good as you can do for static compilation. I did my PhD on a very similar compiler, just for PHP (phc - http://phpcompiler.org ). Something like 90% of v…
They however got a small, just 50% speedup, which doesn't sound like any static types were really used. They'd be able to get something like 100 times faster FPU calculations, for example if they'd knew the variable is only used as the number and nothing else. I know that factor since I measured the overhead of CPython in FPU calculations, and you can also see http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al....
I guess they call everything that would be called for each variable reference in CPython (including checks like "is this a string or a number or...") and that they save more or less just in having the calls encoded one after another, and maybe some internal arguments needed for that, but not in knowing the types.
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Downloading compiled binaries from someone is what you usually do on Mac and Windows.
I've never done that; I always see either dmgs (on Mac) or installers of some sort (on Mac and Windows). The thing you download is a single file, but they expand into a lot of files. The Mac makes it look nicer with the .app idea, but you're still getting a bunch of files in there, one of which might be an interpreter for some of the other files.
You think an archive doesn't contain compiled binaries simply because it contains more than one file?
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never done that; I always see either dmgs (on Mac) or installers of some sort (on Mac and Windows). The thing you download is a single file, but they expand into a lot of files. The Mac makes it look nicer with the .app idea, but you're still getting a bunch of files in there, one of which might be an interpreter for some of the other files.
You think an archive doesn't contain compiled binaries simply because it contains more than one file?
but at that point who cares if it's compiled or not?
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never done that; I always see either dmgs (on Mac) or installers of some sort (on Mac and Windows). The thing you download is a single file, but they expand into a lot of files. The Mac makes it look nicer with the .app idea, but you're still getting a bunch of files in there, one of which might be an interpreter for some of the other files.
You think an archive doesn't contain compiled binaries simply because it contains more than one file?
I think compilation to a single binary is not a big advantage when distributing to others. I think that because I've rarely seen anyone distribute software that way. If it's a widespread practice in some circles, I'd like to know more about the circumstances.
Re: Nuitka — A Python Compiler
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm confused by this. I thought the license used by a compiler had no effect on the licenses that could be used for programs compiled by it. If the author of Nuitka is claiming that software compiled by Nuitka is in fact a derivative work of Nuitka, that is indeed very problematic.
That was my immediate assumption too, but part of the compiler's output is going to be some kind of a runtime library. If that itself is GPL 3 and the code generated by the compiler statically links to it, then I'm pretty sure a case could be made that the compiler's output is a derivitive work. Kind of sneaky and non intuitive, though. This is all way out of my area of expertise, so take it with a grain of salt.
This issue is why bison's license contains a special exception for the part(s) of itself it includes in its output. http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Condition...