ANN: Shed Skin 0.2, an experimental (restricted) Python-to-C++ compiler

[Stefan Behnel]

William Dode wrote:
> On 19-07-2009, Mark Dufour wrote:
>> I have just released version 0.2 of Shed Skin, an experimental
>> (restricted) Python-to-C++ compiler (http://shedskin.googlecode.com).
> 
> I just tested it with a litle game, to find the places of horse on 
> a board 5x5. The result is :
>
> [...]
> shedskin 8s
> python + psyco 18s
> cython avec malloc *int 18s
> cython 55s avec [] python
> python 303s (5m3s)

Note that both Psyco and Cython make a lot less assumptions about Python
code than Shed Skin does. Psyco has the advantage of just needing to jump
in when it finds out that it can help, so it's the most broadly compatible
of the three. But Cython also supports quite a large corpus of dynamic
Python code by now. Shed Skin has a lot of restrictions, many of which are
by design. It's not intended to compile dynamic code, and I think that's a
good thing, because that's what makes it fast for the code that it
supports. Getting the same speed in Cython requires a bit more explicit
typing, simply because Cython does not assume these restrictions.

I think that all three have their raison d'être, and it currently looks
like all three are there to stay and to keep growing better. And I'm also
happy to read that some optimisations jump from one to the other. ;)

Stefan