On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Michael Foord <fuzzyman@gmail.com> wrote:
2009/10/25 Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>
On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 4:38 PM, Michael Foord <fuzzyman@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, you can use Python C extensions with Ironclad [1]. The maintainer hopes to port the core to Jython at some point as well.
What do you personally think of Ironclad? And (separately) of those hopes?
It seems like it ought to be an impossible task - reimplementing the Python C API for another platform. It actually runs surprisingly well (astonishingly) and I know of at least one bank in London now using it in production. The Ironclad implementation reuses the Python C source wherever possible in order to minimise the core that actually needs implementing.
A *large* number of the Numpy and SciPy tests pass with it (~1000 of each last time I checked) and *generally* performance is pretty good. I'd like to see Ironclad in wider use.
The hopes of the Ironclad maintainer to reimplement the core for Jython is certainly *plausible*, but it of course depends on him finding time in the future.
Personally when I write IronPython code I try to avoid a dependency on C extension modules as it seems to me that the *point* of IronPython is to make use of the .NET framework (otherwise you might as well just use CPython). Where Ironclad is being used is where people want to interface existing Python systems to existing .NET systems and that makes a lot of sense (you'd rather avoid rewriting chunks of either if you can and Ironclad acts as a bridge).
Hm. In the Java world, there are many target environments where depending on C extensions would not fly at all, since the only commonality between platforms is the JVM interface. (And sometimes not even that -- e.g. Android uses a different VM to run Java.) I'm guessing that in the .NET world this is much less of an issue, since (a) the platform is more homogeneous and under control of Microsoft (Mono notwithstanding) and (b) .NET explicitly targets other languages (though it prefers "managed C++", it supports plain C++). Have I got this right? I see the prospects for an IronClad-like thing in the Java world as pretty slim because of this.
Michael
-- --Guido van Rossum PS. My elbow needs a couple more weeks of rest. Limiting myself to ultra-short emails.