python on the smalltalk VM

[Dave LeBlanc]

At one time I was really interested in Self and downloaded the whole
25mb+ source tree.

To the best of my recollection, they claimed closer to 80% of compiled
code speed. One of the ways they accomplished this was to use native
machine code in lieu of a VM's bytecodes coupled with subroutine calls
for things that were too complex to inline.

The project ended up at Sun, where I think it ended when Sun decided
not to persue any commercialization. I wonder if all that stuff is
still lurking on Sun's site somewhere...

Dave LeBlanc

On 18 Apr 2001 23:04:41 -0400, Douglas Alan <nessus at mit.edu> wrote:

<snip>
>After many years of research, they came up with a compiler for Self
>that would generate code that runs about one half to one third the
>speed of compiled C code.  This is 30 to 50 times faster than Python.
>I see no reason that the same techniques couldn't be applied to speed
>up Python, but it would probably be a hell of a lot of work and slow
>down compile times significantly.
>
>|>oug