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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

#61

Post by anticorporate »

woodruffw wrote: post #54
sitkack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python 2 to 3 transition was also unserious. The flippant attitude of cpythons wrt the standard library is also unfortunate. Please with your substantive comment comment.

It seems to have been serious enough; I don't think Python would have succeeded as a language if they hadn't done Python 3. > Please with your substantive comment comment. I think binning things as drama isn't substantive, particularly when noting about the linked conversation seems dramatic. I also think they're actually talking about the thing you want (pluggable JIT), so the objection seems incongruous.

> I don't think Python would have succeeded as a language if they hadn't done Python 3.

I assumed Python 2 was pretty much ubiquitous and that the world wasn't adopting Python 3 very quickly for a long time, but I do wonder if the applications I was working with a decade and a half ago (ArcGIS, Blender, Civ4, lots of Red Hat system tools, etc.) biased that viewpoint.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#63

Post by stevefan1999 »

pjmlp wrote: post #41
scott_w wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s a simple request to fully investigate the options before committing a massive piece of work to Python. We’ve seen bad implementations of things land before and now live forever. And frankly, if the team can’t pull together a strong maintenance plan, it can’t be allowed to remain in main.

So it will join PyPy and GraalPy in the corner. Python JIT history is full of drama, and no, Smalltalk, Common Lisp, Interlisp-D, SELF are just as dynamic if not more.

Honorable mention: https://github.com/tonybaloney/Pyjion

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#64

Post by folkrav »

baq wrote: post #56
wavemode wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's effectively a pause. In a project the size of CPython, and a subproject the complexity of a JIT, you can't continue work on a separate branch/repo without guaranteeing that there will be a massive amount of (both textual and semantic) merge conflicts down the road.

Nah, you just merge main back every day or so.

That works, until that inevitable one merge that's harder to fix and takes longer, which in my experience then tends to snowball until it's basically the very merge hell you were trying to avoid. Can't say I've ever had a great experience with long lived feature branches. I can't imagine what it would even look like trying to do this on such a massive project and such an overarching feature.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#65

Post by 12_throw_away »

Fraterkes wrote: post #43

People in this thread writing conspiracy theories over the biggest language in the world requiring a bit of bureaucracy lends some credence to the idea that programming is not real engineering.

Right? Every popular language has lots of real problems. Every language has made decisions that people don't like. Every language has varying degrees of imperfect governance. Weirdly enough, most languages even seem to grow at least a small community of dedicated conspiracy theorists. But for whatever reason, it's particularly hard to find level-headed discussions about Python, moreso than js or rust or C++. It's weird.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#66

Post by LtWorf »

scott_w wrote: post #34
mwkaufma wrote: post #26

>> 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. lol >> 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. poison-pill requirement >> We are setting a window of six months for…

No, it’s a simple request to fully investigate the options before committing a massive piece of work to Python. We’ve seen bad implementations of things land before and now live forever. And frankly, if the team can’t pull together a strong maintenance plan, it can’t be allowed to remain in main.

> and now live forever.

What forever are you talking about? Python removes stuff every single release.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#67

Post by 12_throw_away »

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.

What does "beancounting" mean here? I don't see anything about money or budgets in the announcement. Are you referring to their concerns about the maintainability and complexity of the codebase?

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#68

Post by hanzeweiasa »

mwkaufma wrote: post #26

>> 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. lol >> 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. poison-pill requirement >> We are setting a window of six months for…

[flagged]

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#69

Post by throwaway81523 »

pjmlp wrote: post #41
scott_w wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s a simple request to fully investigate the options before committing a massive piece of work to Python. We’ve seen bad implementations of things land before and now live forever. And frankly, if the team can’t pull together a strong maintenance plan, it can’t be allowed to remain in main.

So it will join PyPy and GraalPy in the corner. Python JIT history is full of drama, and no, Smalltalk, Common Lisp, Interlisp-D, SELF are just as dynamic if not more.

CL is definitely less dynamic than Python. Dunno about the others.

Re: Python JIT project was asked to pause development

#70

Post by dataflow »

scott_w wrote: post #34
mwkaufma wrote: post #26

>> 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. lol >> 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. poison-pill requirement >> We are setting a window of six months for…

No, it’s a simple request to fully investigate the options before committing a massive piece of work to Python. We’ve seen bad implementations of things land before and now live forever. And frankly, if the team can’t pull together a strong maintenance plan, it can’t be allowed to remain in main.

> We’ve seen bad implementations of things land before and now live forever.

Er, doesn't that depend on how leaky the abstraction is? How often have you seen a JITted language be unable to swap in a new JITter due to some sort of unintended coupling?

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