[Python-ideas] Looking for people interested in a Python register virtual machine project

[Skip Montanaro]

Yes, I remember Parrot. As I understand it their original goal was a
language-agnostic virtual machine, which might have complicated things.

I will do a bit of reading and add some text to the "PEP."

Skip

On Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 11:36 AM David Mertz <mertz at gnosis.cx> wrote:

> The Parrot project was also intended to be the same thing, and for a while
> had a fair number of contributors. Unfortunately, it never obtained the
> performance wins that were good for.
>
> On Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 11:55 AM Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Back in the late 90s (!) I worked on a reimagining of the Python
>> virtual machine as a register-based VM based on 1.5.2. I got part of
>> the way with that, but never completed it. In the early 2010s, Victor
>> Stinner got much further using 3.4 as a base. The idea (and dormant
>> code) has been laying around in my mind (and computers) these past
>> couple decades, so I took another swing at it starting in late 2019
>> after retirement, mostly as a way to keep my head in the game. While I
>> got a fair bit of the way, it stalled. I've picked it up and put it
>> down a number of times in the past year, often needing to resolve
>> conflicts because of churn in the current Python virtual machine.
>> Though I kept getting things back in sync, I realize this is not a
>> one-person project, at least not this one person. There are several
>> huge chunks of Python I've ignored over the past 20 years, and not
>> just the internals. (I've never used async anything, for example.) If
>> it is ever to truly be a viable demonstration of the concept, I will
>> need help. I forked the CPython repo and have a branch (register2) of
>> said fork which is currently synced up with the 3.10 (currently
>> master) branch:
>>
>> https://github.com/smontanaro/cpython/tree/register2
>>
>> I started on what could only very generously be called a PEP which you
>> can read here. It includes some of the history of this work as well as
>> details about what I've managed to do so far:
>>
>> https://github.com/smontanaro/cpython/blob/register2/pep-9999.rst
>>
>> If you think any of this is remotely interesting (whether or not you
>> think you'd like to help), please have a look at the "PEP". Because
>> this covers a fair bit of the CPython implementation, chances to
>> contribute in a number of areas exist, even if you have never delved
>> into Python's internals. Questions/comments/pull requests welcome.
>>
>> Skip Montanaro
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>