[Python-Dev] PEP 399: Pure Python/C Accelerator Module Compatibiilty Requirements

[Stefan Behnel]

Brett Cannon, 05.04.2011 01:46:
> At both the VM and language summits at PyCon this year, the issue of
> compatibility of the stdlib amongst the various VMs came up. Two issues came
> about in regards to modules that use C code. One is that code that comes in
> only as C code sucks for all other VMs that are not CPython since they all
> end up having to re-implement that module themselves. Two is that modules
> that have an accelerator module (e.g., heapq, warnings, etc.) can end up
> with compatibility options (sorry, Raymond, for picking on heapq, but is was
> what bit the PyPy people most recently =).
>
> In lieu of all of this, here is a draft PEP to more clearly state the policy
> for the stdlib when it comes to C code. Since this has come up before and
> this was discussed so much at the summits I have gone ahead and checked this
> in so that even if this PEP gets rejected there can be a written record as
> to why.
>
> And before anyone asks, I have already run this past the lead devs of PyPy,
> Jython, and IronPython and they all support what this PEP proposes.

We recently had the discussion about reimplementing stdlib C modules in 
Cython. Accelerator modules are the obvious first step here, as they could 
be implemented in Python and compiled with Cython, instead of actually 
writing them in C in the first place. Wouldn't this be worth mentioning in 
the PEP?

Stefan