[pypy-dev] a faster Python not a primary goal of PyPy?

[Martijn Faassen]

Hey,

Carl Friedrich Bolz wrote:
> since I am in a very nitpicking mode...

I'm nitpicking too, but even in the first announcement of PyPy, before
it even had this name, the claim that the thing was going to be faster
than CPython was made:

   As Armin Rigo of PSYCO fame takes part in the effort,
   we are confident that MinimalPython will eventually
   run faster than today's CPython.

> Holger's statement is very important. At the moment most people have
> the notion that PyPy is mainly about speed.

What I am saying is that it's due to the PyPy project's communications
that this notion has spread. To correct someone who picked up on this
notion is therefore a bit confusing.

> But the really exciting fact about PyPy is its flexibility, therefore
> it makes sense to advertise the flexibility goals a bit (even if that
> means diminishing the speed goal in one single mail to pypy-dev).

> Of course, achieving high speed is a worthwhile goal but this goal
> can be reached _because of_ the flexibility of PyPy (not the other
> way round).

I know that, and I'll stop nitpicking now. I just thought it was a bit
weird to start correcting an impression in people that seems a
legitimate interpretation of previous communication of this project.
Then again, an emphasis on flexibility is justified.

What is exciting about PyPy seems to depend on ones perspective too. To 
the PyPy hackers themselves, the coolest thing is the flexibility 
allowing all sorts of fun experimentations with syntaxes and semantics 
and ways Python code is executed.

To the wider world outside Python language hackers however the *results*
of this flexibility of PyPy is what is truly interesting. The
flexibility by itself is not interesting at all from that perspective.
Since the topic of this thread was making money out of PyPy, this is a
relevant thing to talk about.

For non Python core hackers, the biggest potential gains in PyPy that I
heard about so far would be:

* increased performance

* making Python better in an increasingly concurrent world
(threading/GIL/stackless, etc). That ties into increased performance
too, in multi processing environments.

Regards,

Martijn