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

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:36:20 +0100
Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18 April 2011 08:05, Maciej Fijalkowski <fijall at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 4:19 AM, Raymond Hettinger
> > <raymond.hettinger at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >> Almost none of the concerns that have been raised has been addressed.  Does
> >> the PEP only apply to purely algorithmic modules such as heapq or does it
> >> apply to anything written in C (like an xz compressor or for example)?
> >
> > My understanding is it does apply only to stuff that does not wrap an
> > external library.
> 
> My understanding is that this is most people's understanding, so it
> should be explicitly documented in the PEP.
> 
> It would also be worth asking: are there any other reasons for using C
> code beyond wrapping external libraries and accelerating code that
> could equally be written in Python?

faulthandler is an example. Very low-level tinkering with threads,
signal handlers and possibly corrupt memory simply can't be done
in Python.

Regards

Antoine.