I'll also note that one of the things we (and others) *have* been
putting quite a bit of time into is the question of "Why do people
avoid using extension modules for code acceleration?".
I think that is simple. Those that try give up because its a difficult API to
call correctly.
At PYCON UK on speaker explain how she, PhD level researcher,
had failed to get the a C extension working.
I was contacted to improve PyCXX by a contractor for the US Army that stated that he
was called in to help the internal developers get a big library wrapped for use from python.
After 6 months they where no where near working code. He did what was
needed with PyCXX in 3 weeks + the time getting me to make some nice additions to
help him.
It seems that if people find a C++ library that will do the heavy lifting they
end up with extensions. But those that attempt the C API as is seem to fail
and give up. It also seems that people do not go looking for the helper libraries.
Next year at PYCON I hope to give a talk on PyCXX and encourage people to
write extensions.
Barry
PyCXX maintainer.