Python compilers?

[Ville Vainio]

>>>>> "Paul" == Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> writes:

    Paul> I do think that Python's designers should wait til PyPy with
    Paul> native-code backends has been deployed for a while before
    Paul> defining too much of Python 3.0, so we can first gain some
    Paul> experience with compiled Python.  Python should evolve
    Paul> towards being compiled most of the time.

I think we might be able to get significant benefits from the .NET
implementation (provided that Mono would prove to be legally feasible
in the future) - a lot of the JIT work is done by "other people", and
being able to seamlessly combine Python with a statically typed
language (which probably produces faster code) would be able to give
Python a sweet role in many programming projects - the role of the
initial implementation/specification language, with grunts doing the
possible mechanical porting of performance critical areas. 

We could have such a role already, but only in theory. C/C++
integration is not seamless enough, and the languages themselves are
considered to be too difficult, clumsy and unproductive to attract
companies.

One thing is pretty certain to benefit any future speedup efforts,
whatever road is chosen, namely optional type declarations. Their
implementation could be left unspecified, and the initial Python
implementation could use them only for runtime type checking in
debugmode (or ignore altogether). Type inferencing could also use them
to smooth up things.

-- 
Ville Vainio   http://tinyurl.com/2prnb