OT: This Swift thing

[Alain Ketterlin]

Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> writes:

> On 6/5/2014 4:07 PM, Alain Ketterlin wrote:
>
>>> When I compile Cython modules I use LLVM on this computer.
>>
>> Cython is not Python, it is another language, with an incompatible
>> syntax.
>
> Cython compiles Python with optional extensions that allow additional
> speed ups over compiling Python as is. In other word, the Cython
> language is a Python superset.

You're right. What I question is the fact that anybody uses Cython
without the additional syntax. There is little chance that a "pure"
Python program will see any significant speedup when compiled with
Cython (or, if it does, it means that the "canonical" Python interpreter
has some sub-optimal behavior that will, eventually, be corrected).

The nice thing with optional type annotations and an hypothetical Python
compiler would be that you could, e.g., continue using the interpreter
during development and then compile for production use. Or whatever mix
you need.

-- Alain.