[ann] Minimal Python project

[yaipa h.]

All,

While I am gripped in fear at the thought of Python spinning into a
series of downward spiraling dialects...

The adventurer in me says, "Give'em hell boys... Damn the
torpedoes..."

-al
 

]Andrew McGregor <andrew at indranet.co.nz> wrote in message news:<mailman.1042257199.7572.python-list at python.org>...
> --On Friday, January 10, 2003 23:37:09 +0000 "Edward K. Ream" 
> <edream at tds.net> wrote:
> 
> >> As Armin Rigo of PSYCO fame takes part in the effort,
> > we are confident that MinimalPython will eventually
> > run faster than today's CPython.
> >
> > This announcement seems to be making a truly remarkable claim, namely that
> > one could increase the speed of  C code by recoding it in Python and then
> > applying Psycho to it.
> 
> Yep, you can!  It takes a pretty strange piece of code, but it does happen. 
> For instance, I've written a key-management protocol in Python, and it 
> really is faster than the C implementations of the same thing when certain 
> key functions are fed to psyco.  (of course, this may just say that I have 
> a better feel for algorithm design)
> 
> > I am inclined to disbelieve this claim.  Why should Psycho be able to do
> > better than an optimizing C compiler applied to hand-written interpreter
> > code and/or library code?  The only possibilities I can think of:
> >
> > 1. The GIT somehow has access to enough run-time information to perform
> > some truly excellent optimizations.
> 
> This one :-)  For instance, in a dynamic language, you can't know until 
> runtime if some argument to a method has constant type or (better) constant 
> value, but a JIT can discover and use this.  If it does not, and someone 
> passes it a different type or value, the JIT can then discover this and 
> compile a new version that handles that type, optimised.  Note that the 
> constant value case can't be optimised by a C compiler, unless the function 
> is inlined, which doesn't happen in big programs very much because the 
> function will often be in another module.
> 
> It is also possible to inline method calls, merge methods if they are often 
> called in a particular sequence, and then optimise over the results.  C 
> compilers, because of modular compilation again, often can't do this either 
> (although a particularly fancy compiler might; it needs an integrated build 
> system to make this possible).
> 
> > 2. The granularity of the data processed by the GIT somehow is big enough
> > to again affect some excellent optimizations.
> 
> Maybe so, I'm not sure.
> 
> > 3. There are other marvelous optimizations, unknown to me and available
> > neither to Guido nor to an optimizing compiler that can be applied.
> >
> > My guess is that none of these are true.  Furthermore, I suspect that if
> > such optimizations are available to the GIT the optimizations could also
> > be made available either to Guido or to optimizing C compilers.  Note
> > that the fact that Psycho can improve Python code is not, by itself, an
> > indication that it could improve the corresponding C code!
> >
> > Would anyone care to enlighten me how MinimalPython will achieve its
> > stated goals?
> >
> > Edward
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Edward K. Ream   email:  edream at tds.net
> > Leo: Literate Editor with Outlines
> > Leo: http://personalpages.tds.net/~edream/front.html
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > --
> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> >
> >