Fastest way to detect a non-ASCII character in a list of strings.

[Stefan Behnel]

Dun Peal, 28.10.2010 09:10:
> I find myself surprised at the relatively little use that Cython is seeing.

I don't think it's being used that little. It just doesn't show that 
easily. We get a lot of feedback on the mailing list that suggests that 
it's actually used by all sorts of people in all sorts of places, from tiny 
library wrapper projects to major applications, in-house, server-side and 
OpenSource. I think the reason for that is simple: it works, it solves a 
real-world problem, and it does it well.


> You would expect a whole lot of organizations and people to fancy a
> language that's about as high-level as Python, yet almost as fast and
> down-to-the-metal as C.
>
> Add to that the ability to seamlessly integrate with both your
> existing C/++ codebase and your Python codebase, easily mix very high
> level abstractions with very low-level machine access... clear winner.

Thanks for the testimony. I hope you don't mind finding it on our project 
main page.

As usual, I think it's not as easy as that. I mean, big companies still use 
Java these days. It's not like you show them a better programming language 
and they'll drop what they hold in their hands and go for it. Cython fits 
well where people use Python anyway, and where C code is something that 
people do not run from screaming. That being said, Cython really plugs a 
huge hole, anywhere between "a friendlier C with a huge standard library" 
and "Python at the speed of C". The image below illustrates it quite well, 
I think (it's from a talk I gave a year ago):

http://behnel.de/cython200910/SimplicityVsSpeed.png


> I'd expect Cython to have a far larger userbase, with a long line of
> sponsors queuing up to fund further development. Maybe it will get
> there some day :-)

:-) I certainly wouldn't object. Funding is something the project can 
seriously benefit from.

Stefan