[Python-Dev] Interest in integrating C decimal module into Python?

[Stefan Behnel]

Stefan Krah wrote:
> Mark Dickinson wrote:
>> I think my biggest concern is maintenance:  we'd be replacing
>> 8500 lines of Python code in a single file, that several of the
>> current core developers understand well, with 30000 (Stefan, is
>> that about accurate?) lines of C in several files, that presumably
>> none of the current core devs is familiar with right now.
> 
> Ok, I think we could say that the sloc-counts are around 2600 lines of
> Python vs. around 11500-12500 lines of C.

If maintenance is an issue, I would actually propose to compile the
existing decimal.py using Cython (works with a few trivial modifications),
add a few type decorators at the hot spots to make them really fast, and
then use that as both the Python implementation and fast binary module.

Stefan