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[ann] Minimal Python project

Manuel M. Garcia mgarcia at cole-switches.com
Sat Jan 11 19:24:37 EST 2003 
On Sat, 11 Jan 2003 20:09:36 +0100, holger krekel
<pyth at devel.trillke.net> wrote:
(edit)
>We probably should have said 'hope to' instead of
>'are confident' regarding speed prospects.  

Yeah, I got nervous when I read "we are confident that MinimalPython
will eventually run faster than today's CPython".

It reminded me of the "microthread OS" and "Perl 6 Parrot registers VM
versus stack VM".  Before coding even begins, performance claims are
made, mainly based on the "coolness" of the technique.  When the
performance does not materialize, or the coding is stalled, the
technique is still treated as above reproach.  And when the old way is
still faster, pleading that will more time, and with more coders, the
old way will be left in the dust.

I can see how MinimalPython could be faster than CPython.  No
programmer would write C code tuned to run optimally on every machine
under every different multi-tasking work load with every different
internal state.  Too many machines, too many ways of trading space for
speed, too many ways of striving for something small enough to fit in
the cache and avoid paging, too many different tricks.  Of course, a
sane C programmer would write a single reasonably efficient
implementation, and in the program's hot spots, maybe specialized code
to take advantage of a few common situations.

A JIT compliler would supply code tuned for the specific machine in
the specific situation.  It might be different low level code each
time, but the JIT compliler does not care.

The part of the project I am most excited about is playing with a
reasonalbly efficient Python implementation written mainly in Python!
If the speed never materializes, we still have a test bed for many
Python programmers to try out new ideas for the traditional Python
implementations.  And if the speed claim comes true, that is a whole
another level of goodness!

Manuel
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