HOPE: A Python just-in-time compiler for astrophysical computations

[Stefan Behnel]

Michael Torrie schrieb am 26.06.2015 um 19:32:
> I've never heard of pythran; I'll have to check it out and see how it
> compares to the ever-growing crop of Python dialect compilers.

My feeling is that Python seems such a simple language at the surface that
people who want to write a special purpose "Python subset" compiler prefer
starting from scratch, rather than contributing to the existing tools. It
takes a while until they understand the actual size of that undertaking and
that's the point where most of these projects just die.

I don't mean all of them. If you have enough time and/or money, you can
certainly get a project going that's relevant enough for a critical
(special purpose) user base to provide an actual benefit. But then, why
invest that time into something completely new that requires major
long-term maintenance efforts, when implementing the desired feature in an
existing compiler would be a one-time investment with a much smaller
overall impact on further maintenance costs?

Not Invented Here Syndrome, I guess...

Stefan