[Python-Dev] Open CPython VM for type information

[Kay Schluehr]

Dear Python developers,

while the JVM is opened to support dynamically typed languages [1] I 
wonder if the CPyVM could not show more openness to statically typed 
languages? Hereby I don't think that much about arbitrary languages for 
the CPyVM but sublanguages like RPython which are "static enough" to be 
compilable into extension modules [2].

However creating C extension modules from Python code is not really the 
standard way I do think Python source should be handled. Instead I think 
about a more direct VM support like the JVM does, that provides opcodes 
like iload, fstore etc. Besides this I don't expect one canonical 
approach for these type information to be feeded into the CPyVM. There 
are type inferencer like rtyper for PyPy, Psycos continous bytecode 
monitoring and also other approaches are possible that use type 
feedback. Finally optional type declarations are also an issue; however 
I would like to see language design discussions being separated ( -> 
Python 3000 ) and focus on general APIs for compiler extensions / plugs 
that deal with type information ( the architecture ) and VM 
implementation issues.

Thanks, Kay

[1] http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=292
[2] http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/extcompiler.html