Cpython optimization

[Francesco Bochicchio]

Il Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:28:55 -0700, Qrees ha scritto:

> Hello
> 
> As my Master's dissertation I chose Cpython optimization. That's why i'd
> like to ask what are your suggestions what can be optimized. Well, I
> know that quite a lot. I've downloaded the source code (I plan to work
> on Cpython 2.6 and I've downloaded 2.6.3 release). By looking at the
> code I've found comment's like "this can be optimized by..." etc. but
> maybe you guide me what should I concentrate on in my work?
> 
> I've 6-7 month  for this and If I create something decent I can publish
> it.
> 
> Thank you in advance for any help

If you don't know yet, you could find interesting this project:

   http://code.google.com/p/unladen-swallow/

They too are trying to improve CPython speed.

If you are thinking of language variations  that trade some flexiblity 
for speed, you might be interested in Cython:

http://www.cython.org/

As a simple and plain python user, I would value a version of cython that 
can be used to built faster executables out of almost-python code (that 
is python code with a few additional restructions). Maybe using typing 
inference to avoid declaring explicitely the variable types.

Another interesting place to go is pypy : http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/
pypy/doc/ . They too have developed a restriced version of python 
(RPython, I think) which should be faster than CPython. They don't work 
with CPython code base, but could give you ideas on what are the 
bottlenecks of python as a language.

Ciao
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FB