[Numpy-discussion] Looking for people interested in helping with Python compiler to LLVM

[Ilan Schnell]

As far as I understand, the goal is not to handle arbitrary
Python code, because this would become too difficult as is
not necessary when you have a simple math oriented function
which you want to speed up.  The idea is to create something
similar to http://www.enthought.com/~ischnell/paper.html which
only handles some restricted Python code, but using LLVM
(instead of C) as the target language.

- Ilan


On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 1:39 PM, Nathaniel Smith <njs at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:18 PM, Travis Oliphant <travis at continuum.io> wrote:
>> Cython and Numba certainly overlap.  However, Cython requires:
>>
>>        1) learning another language
>
> So is the goal for numba to actually handle arbitrary Python code with
> correct semantics, i.e., it's actually a compiled implementation of
> Python-the-language? (I feel like most of where Cython-the-language
> differs from Python-the-language is that Cython adds extensions for
> stuff where getting speed out of Python-the-language would just be too
> hard. Dynamic type inference for numpy arrays is definitely a good
> start, but you can't even, say, promote a Python integer to a C
> integer without changing semantics...)
>
>>        2) creating an extension module --- loading bit-code files and dynamically executing (even on a different machine from the one that initially created them) can be a powerful alternative for run-time compilation and distribution of code.
>
> Totally agreed on this point, the workflow for Cython could definitely
> be smoother.
>
> -- Nathaniel
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