by Armin Rigo - Antonio Cuni for EuroPython 2011
The PyPy project has recently gathered a lot of attention for its progress in speeding up the Python language – it is the fastest Python interpreter, and the most compatible and most stable ‘alternative´ one. No longer merely a research project, PyPy is now suitable for production use. We are working on improvements on calling into C libraries and generally integrating with the existing Python extensions ecosystem.
We will give an overview on how the tracing Just-in-Time compiler works in PyPy. From there, we will then focus on what the PyPy project has achieved, particularly in the past two years:
most Python benchmarks run much faster than with CPython or Psyco
the real-world PyPy compiler toolchain itself (200 KLocs) runs twice as fast
already supports 32 and 64bit x86 and is in the process of supporting ARM
full compatibility with CPython (more than Jython/IronPython)
full (and JIT-ed) ctypes support to call C libraries from Python
supports Stackless Python (in-progress)
new “cpyext” layer which integrates existing CPython C extensions
an experimental super-fast JIT-compilation of calls to C++ libraries
We want to reserve time for discussing potential future work like SWIG and/or Cython compatibility and other areas brought up by the audience. There are many interesting details that can be explored further; we will focus on the points the audience is most interested in.
For more info:
Our blog: http://morepypy.blogspot.com/
Eureka program: http://www.eurostars-eureka.eu/
Eurostars Eureka is our funding source since 2009. It is a cross-European funding collaboration that targets small firms which produce research.
