[Python-Dev] python compiler (original) (raw)

Craig Citro craigcitro at gmail.com
Mon Apr 5 19:32:11 CEST 2010

I hate to remind you but Cython is not python. It does not even plan to support all of the parts which are considered python semantics (like tracebacks and frames).

It's true -- we basically compile to C + the Python/C API, depending on CPython being around for runtime support, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. (I don't think I tried to claim that we were a full Python implementation in my original email ...) I'm curious about the bit you mention, though -- is constructing a call frame for every Python call really part of the semantics, and not just a CPython implementation detail? (I've never played with Jython or IronPython to know if they do this.) We actually do construct all the call frames when doing profiling, so we could turn this on if we needed to for a "strict" mode, but usually the additional runtime speedup is more desirable.

Independent of this, the OP was asking about working on something as part of a school-related project. I think that if you're looking to see how a Python to C compiler works, you could get quite a bit from checking out Cython and/or Pyrex, even if your real goal was to create a Python implementation independent of CPython.

-cc

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