[pypy-dev] naive VM question

cumber at netspace.net.au cumber at netspace.net.au
Thu Nov 22 06:48:49 CET 2007


First I should probably introduce myself. I've been lurking on the pypy-dev list
for about 6 months now, ever since I discovered the project. I think PyPy looks
like it has truly awe-inspiring potential, and I'm just about getting to the
point where I am able to play around with it and maybe think about contributing
a bit.

Sadly sprints are a bit hard to get to from Australia though.

So yes. Name's Ben. *tips hat*


Quoting Armin Rigo <arigo at tunes.org>:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 10:53:39PM +1300, Peter Fraser wrote:
> > Is  "multiple isolated (but bridged) VM's in a single process" a
> > possible general technique?
> >
> > If  multiple cooperating processes is a reasonable response to the
> > "single threaded VM meets multi-core architecture" problem  -then is
> > "multiple VM's in a single process" a better one?
> 
> This is probably yet another place where PyPy could go much more easily
> than CPython:  multiple VMs in the same process which would by default
> not have any share state, but expose primitives to the Python programmer
> to explicitly share some objects.  This is not trivial: there is some
> research and experimentation to be done here.
> 
> Right now, the main issue with that is that it's definitely "yet another
> cool thing that we could do with PyPy".  As was discussed at length, in
> the current situation the core team's feeling is that it needs to focus
> on providing a useful "baseline" Python interpreter.  Someone else is
> welcome to jump in and play, though.

This is an area I would love to work on, but I think it's a bit beyond my
capabilities just yet. I have a much more modest project I'd like to do with
pypy more immediately. I was planning on posting here for advice after I've
poked around a bit (haven't yet had time to really do anything since I did my
first svn checkout the other day), in fact. I want to see if I can use pypy to
make a python shell, both to become more familliar with pypy's internals and
because I want one. :)

But anyway, one of the things I would like to work on in the future if I get a
bit more expertise is making pypy "multi-core friendly", so I guess if there are
any ideas already floating around of lines of experimentation to try, I
certainly would like to hear them.

-- Ben Mellor


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