Is Stackless Python DEAD?

[Christian Tismer]

Ben Wolfson wrote:

> On Fri, 15 Feb 2002 02:27:03 -0600, Christian Tismer wrote:
> 
> 
>>The new solution is cool and uncool at the same time.
>>All my difficult changes to the core have been abandoned.
>>All magic about Stackless' implementation is gone (sigh).
>>It is now orthogonal to the Python engine. 
>>
> 
> Does this mean that the changes that made Stackless faster than CPython
> are gone, too?


Right now, yes. Maybe they will be re-applied later.
Stackless is today running 1-2% slower than CPython.
That's due to a little indirection and overhead
in the function wrapped around eval-frame, plus
some fractal effects that seem to appear whenever
I touch the core at all. Adding code always resulted
in some speed loss, at least on Win32. No idea what
exactly happens; I think there are unfortunate
decisions about code placement in the compiling.

It has to be said that the speed patches of the former
Stackless have already been split apart. Without them,
old Stackless was 5 or more percent slower than CPython.
I don't know of these patches can still easily applied
to Python 2.2, but there is a good chance that this
will work out.
In that sense, the new Stackless is even faster than
the old one.

I might put some time into this, after Stackless is
ready for production code. These should be considered
as two disjoint projects now.

ciao - chris

-- 
Christian Tismer             :^)   <mailto:tismer at tismer.com>
Mission Impossible 5oftware  :     Have a break! Take a ride on Python's
Kaunstr. 26                  :    *Starship* http://starship.python.net/
14163 Berlin                 :     PGP key -> http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/
PGP Fingerprint       E182 71C7 1A9D 66E9 9D15  D3CC D4D7 93E2 1FAE F6DF
      where do you want to jump today?   http://www.stackless.com/