[Python-Dev] Interest in integrating C decimal module into Python?

[Nick Coghlan]

Maciej Fijalkowski wrote:
> For example other python implementations might decide to use python
> version as long as builtin version does not appear. Python versions are
> usually also better targets for jit than mixed versions. C level versions also
> usually have more bugs (just statistics), so some people might want to
> choose pure-python version.
> 
> In general - some people have some reasons.

Although nobody has broken "sys.modules['_decimal'] = 0", so
deliberately turning off optimisations is pretty easy if you really
don't want them.

There's a reason we moved to implicit import of optimised versions in
Py3k - we're unlikely to revert to the old way of doing things.

As far as decimal.py in particular goes, there are significant
maintenance gains in keeping a lot of the non-performance critical
context management code in pure Python. So we're likely to wait and see
how much speed Mark can wring out of a simple C decimal coefficient
object (that other implementations can also fairly easily provide
natively) before looking seriously at a wholesale replacement of the module.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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