[Python-Dev] Re: native code compiler? (or, OCaml vs. Python)

[Dan Sugalski]

At 12:58 AM +0100 1/31/03, Fredrik Lundh wrote:
>Dan Sugalski wrote:
>
>>  >Oh? Guido seems to disagree with you.
>>
>>  That's fine. Guido and I have a different set of skills.   It's not
>>  that tough with the right set.
>
>you mean you've finished Parrot, and you have a working Python
>compiler for it?  can we see some benchmarks, please?

It's not done yet, no. Doesn't mean that it isn't sufficiently 
complete to draw some conclusions, and we do have a working 
cross-platform JIT, which is the part that has the most direct 
bearing on the original subject of this little firestorm. Native code 
compilation isn't difficult, nor is expecting a gain of at least 20% 
unreasonable over straight interpretation. (Expecting a factor of 
10-12 speedup not unreasonable in some circumstances) Ignoring 
parrot, I'll point you at some of the Scheme and Smalltalk setups. 
(Andyou'd be hard-pressed to find something to beat smalltalk for 
runtime dynamism)

If you want to bet, I'll put up $10 and a round of beer (or other 
beverage of your choice) at OSCON 2004 for all the python labs & zope 
folks that says parrot beats the current python interpreter when 
running all the python benchmark suite programs (that don't depend on 
extensions written in C, since we're shooting for pure engine 
performance) from bytecode. Game?
-- 
                                         Dan

--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
dan@sidhe.org                         have teddy bears and even
                                       teddy bears get drunk