A long time ago I worked on a Prolog compiler which had the following design. * The system had an abstract machine specification which is analogous to the Python byte code instructions. * There was a second, very low-level instruction set (called progol) which was essentially a set of macros from which assembly code was generated. To port to a new architecture, new mappings for progol instructions were defined. * The system was able to compile the abstract machine instructions directly to progol. Also, a Prolog interpreter was written in progol. Now I think Pypy might benefit from a similar architecture. My suggestion is as follows: * Examine the entire C code base and come up with a low-level instruction set (let's call it pynoth). As above, this instruction set would be just a bunch of macros but probably translated to C rather than assembly. * Write a semi-automated converter (ala tismer) to translate the existing C code into pynoth. Perhaps, if the pynoth code can retain comments and look semi-decent, the Python gods will accept to use it rather than the existing C code base. If not, then we'd have to retranslate new/modified sources to pynoth as python changes. * Develop a psyco-style code generator which generates pynoth instead of assembly. * Over time, we can get rid of the hand-hacked pynoth code and rewrite much of the system in python. -arman -- Arman Bostani 360 N. Sepulveda Blvd. #2055 Twin Sun Inc. El Segundo, CA 90245 arman@twinsun.com Tel: (310) 524-1800, Fax: (310) 524-1818