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Wow. Just wow. Congrats to the PyPy team. It never stops. I stopped calling myself a Python programmer sometime ago and started saying I'm a PyPy programmer be

Wow. Just wow. Congrats to the PyPy team. It never stops. I stopped calling myself a Python programmer sometime ago and started saying I'm a PyPy programmer because this is the future of Python. The underlying basis for PyPy has big implications for a number of dynamic languages though so we should all be cheering it on and contributing. For those who want better Python3 support, there's only ONE answer so no need to keep begging. Donate more money to the project or donate your talents. Patches welcome!

kzrdude 11y ago
How can it be the future if Py 3 support is the side project?
- sp332 11y ago
  After they get momentum by attracting people with their speed improvements, it will be a lot easier to attract talent and money to tackle Python 3. The reason Python 3 is on the back burner is that there simply isn't a large enough audience right now. That could change if they keep increasing their reach.
  - kzrdude 11y ago
    After they get momentum? But pypy has existed for a long time. They are in a maturity phase now, surely.
    - sp332 11y ago
      There are major bug fixes and compatibility and performance improvements in this release. They're also asking for a large amount of money to start a push to add Py 3 support. And NumPy support is still improving - they'll gain a lot of users as that becomes complete. None of this seems like "maturity phase", especially in terms of userbase or funding.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - LeifCarrotson 11y ago
      You don't get many cases of 20% memory consumption improvements in mature projects...
      - wyldfire 11y ago
        "20% consumption" is more a factor of how much memory you have installed and how much you intend to use than PyPy's maturity. I frequently use malloc()/mmap() to consume much more than 20% of system memory. EDIT: strike this, I misunderstood.
        groovy2shoes 11y ago
        I think they're talking about a 20% improvement in memory consumption release-over-release, not complaining that it's consuming 20% of their memory.
      - anc84 11y ago
        You should read through PostgreSQL release notes some day.
  - Alupis 11y ago
    > After they get momentum by attracting people with their speed improvements, it will be a lot easier to attract talent and money to tackle Python 3 Well, this is a catch-22, because folks like me and my team won't touch it unless it's Python 3. We're not a Python shop, but have flirted with Python before. It wouldn't make sense for us to write new code in Python 2.
  - poooogles 11y ago
    >The reason Python 3 is on the back burner is that there simply isn't a large enough audience right now. Funnily enough the reason I haven't adopted using PyPy is down to their lack of Python3 support. I think you're underestimating the amount of people using Python3.
    - cglace 11y ago
      I think he means not enough companies willing to sponsor python 3 support.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Pip statistics tells us they're not that many.
      - collinmanderson 11y ago
        Do you have any recent statistics? I'm guessing that most people who use Python 3 are using recent versions of pip that have caching built in, so that may skew the results a bit.
        coldtea 11y ago
        From this (last year), Python 2.6 is bigger than 3: https://caremad.io/2015/04/a-year-of-pypi-downloads/ https://caremad.io/2015/04/a-year-of-pypi-downloads/ >I'm guessing that most people who use Python 3 are using recent versions of pip that have caching built in, so that may skew the results a bit. Since pip updates itself too, why wouldn't people using Python 2 also have newer versions?
        collinmanderson 11y ago
        I'm guessing a lot of people who are stuck on Python 2.6 are also stuck on old versions of pip.
- nikolay 11y ago
  I can't use PyPy until it implements a real Python 3 version, i.e. one that supports asyncio, which is the real future. Until then, I will just be reading about PyPy on Hacker News and just sighing... Edit: For everything I use, I try to find an asyncio version - Slack client [0], SSH [1], etc. [0]: https://github.com/gfreezy/slacker-asyncio/ https://github.com/gfreezy/slacker-asyncio/ [1]: https://github.com/ronf/asyncssh https://github.com/ronf/asyncssh
  - ChrisArgyle 11y ago
    I second the asyncio endorsement. I started using Python 3 just to try out asyncio and never went back. It works like a dream.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Py 3 is not the future of CPython either. Even today the overwhelming majority of projects use 2, even new projects.
  - X-Istence 11y ago
    While this has historically been the case, Python 3.4/3.5 has really sped up adoption of Python 3, and from an open source maintainer, Python 3 is making large inroads. Also, libraries are slowly going to drop Python 2.x support and go Python 3 only.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >While this has historically been the case, Python 3.4/3.5 has really sped up adoption of Python 3, and from an open source maintainer, Python 3 is making large inroads. If by great inroads you mean "around 6-10% in PyPI after 8 years of trying", then yes. But unless it gets over 30-40% it's not anywhere near significant in my charts...
  - takeda 11y ago
    As soon as Python 2.7 was put in maintenance mode I see much more people talking about Python 3. There are even libraries that are Python 3 only. All the developers needed was a kick in the butt. If only PSF did that sooner.
valarauca1 11y ago
>The underlying basis for PyPy has big implications for a number of dynamic languages Isn't it just a tracing JIT? Aren't these relatively well understood and implemented dozens of different ways?
- maxerickson 11y ago
  The novelty is that the JIT is produced by compiling a simple interpreter. http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-writing-interpreter-with-pypy.html http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-writing-interp...
  - Alphasite_ 11y ago
    Others have shown up and take the same approach, Graal and Zippy for example.
    - njharman 11y ago
      I've never heard of those. Python on the other hand has been my primary professional language for years. i.e. people pay me to program in python. See how PyPy might be a tinsy bit more relevant / meaningful to professional developers.
      - pjmlp 11y ago
        Java developers know them quite well. In fact Java 9 is getting a plugin API for Graal.
  - valarauca1 11y ago
    I still don't see the novelty. Its a JIT compiler run-time. You put a program in the JIT-compiler's run-time. And it was JIT compiled. The program you gave it just so happens to have Turning Complete behavior. It doesn't change anything the JIT compiler is doing. It's like a compiler boot-strapping itself. It seems really impressive, but really the program is just doing its job on an input. The input just happens to be itself.
119212001 11y ago
I don't want to be part of that "future". PyPy is good but "closed": It's very hard to tinker due to excessive compile times and unreachability of the C level (no, cffi is no substitute). If you just use Python as a managed language, fine, but the magic is gone. I'd probably use Java if I wanted a "closed" language.

kzrdude 11y ago

How can it be the future if Py 3 support is the side project?

sp332 11y ago
After they get momentum by attracting people with their speed improvements, it will be a lot easier to attract talent and money to tackle Python 3. The reason Python 3 is on the back burner is that there simply isn't a large enough audience right now. That could change if they keep increasing their reach.
- kzrdude 11y ago
  After they get momentum? But pypy has existed for a long time. They are in a maturity phase now, surely.
  - sp332 11y ago
    There are major bug fixes and compatibility and performance improvements in this release. They're also asking for a large amount of money to start a push to add Py 3 support. And NumPy support is still improving - they'll gain a lot of users as that becomes complete. None of this seems like "maturity phase", especially in terms of userbase or funding.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - LeifCarrotson 11y ago
    You don't get many cases of 20% memory consumption improvements in mature projects...
    - wyldfire 11y ago
      "20% consumption" is more a factor of how much memory you have installed and how much you intend to use than PyPy's maturity. I frequently use malloc()/mmap() to consume much more than 20% of system memory. EDIT: strike this, I misunderstood.
      - groovy2shoes 11y ago
        I think they're talking about a 20% improvement in memory consumption release-over-release, not complaining that it's consuming 20% of their memory.
    - anc84 11y ago
      You should read through PostgreSQL release notes some day.
- Alupis 11y ago
  > After they get momentum by attracting people with their speed improvements, it will be a lot easier to attract talent and money to tackle Python 3 Well, this is a catch-22, because folks like me and my team won't touch it unless it's Python 3. We're not a Python shop, but have flirted with Python before. It wouldn't make sense for us to write new code in Python 2.
- poooogles 11y ago
  >The reason Python 3 is on the back burner is that there simply isn't a large enough audience right now. Funnily enough the reason I haven't adopted using PyPy is down to their lack of Python3 support. I think you're underestimating the amount of people using Python3.
  - cglace 11y ago
    I think he means not enough companies willing to sponsor python 3 support.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Pip statistics tells us they're not that many.
    - collinmanderson 11y ago
      Do you have any recent statistics? I'm guessing that most people who use Python 3 are using recent versions of pip that have caching built in, so that may skew the results a bit.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        From this (last year), Python 2.6 is bigger than 3: https://caremad.io/2015/04/a-year-of-pypi-downloads/ https://caremad.io/2015/04/a-year-of-pypi-downloads/ >I'm guessing that most people who use Python 3 are using recent versions of pip that have caching built in, so that may skew the results a bit. Since pip updates itself too, why wouldn't people using Python 2 also have newer versions?
        collinmanderson 11y ago
        I'm guessing a lot of people who are stuck on Python 2.6 are also stuck on old versions of pip.
nikolay 11y ago
I can't use PyPy until it implements a real Python 3 version, i.e. one that supports asyncio, which is the real future. Until then, I will just be reading about PyPy on Hacker News and just sighing... Edit: For everything I use, I try to find an asyncio version - Slack client [0], SSH [1], etc. [0]: https://github.com/gfreezy/slacker-asyncio/ https://github.com/gfreezy/slacker-asyncio/ [1]: https://github.com/ronf/asyncssh https://github.com/ronf/asyncssh
- ChrisArgyle 11y ago
  I second the asyncio endorsement. I started using Python 3 just to try out asyncio and never went back. It works like a dream.
coldtea 11y ago
Py 3 is not the future of CPython either. Even today the overwhelming majority of projects use 2, even new projects.
- X-Istence 11y ago
  While this has historically been the case, Python 3.4/3.5 has really sped up adoption of Python 3, and from an open source maintainer, Python 3 is making large inroads. Also, libraries are slowly going to drop Python 2.x support and go Python 3 only.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >While this has historically been the case, Python 3.4/3.5 has really sped up adoption of Python 3, and from an open source maintainer, Python 3 is making large inroads. If by great inroads you mean "around 6-10% in PyPI after 8 years of trying", then yes. But unless it gets over 30-40% it's not anywhere near significant in my charts...
- takeda 11y ago
  As soon as Python 2.7 was put in maintenance mode I see much more people talking about Python 3. There are even libraries that are Python 3 only. All the developers needed was a kick in the butt. If only PSF did that sooner.

valarauca1 11y ago

>The underlying basis for PyPy has big implications for a number of dynamic languages Isn't it just a tracing JIT? Aren't these relatively well understood and implemented dozens of different ways?

maxerickson 11y ago
The novelty is that the JIT is produced by compiling a simple interpreter. http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-writing-interpreter-with-pypy.html http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-writing-interp...
- Alphasite_ 11y ago
  Others have shown up and take the same approach, Graal and Zippy for example.
  - njharman 11y ago
    I've never heard of those. Python on the other hand has been my primary professional language for years. i.e. people pay me to program in python. See how PyPy might be a tinsy bit more relevant / meaningful to professional developers.
    - pjmlp 11y ago
      Java developers know them quite well. In fact Java 9 is getting a plugin API for Graal.
- valarauca1 11y ago
  I still don't see the novelty. Its a JIT compiler run-time. You put a program in the JIT-compiler's run-time. And it was JIT compiled. The program you gave it just so happens to have Turning Complete behavior. It doesn't change anything the JIT compiler is doing. It's like a compiler boot-strapping itself. It seems really impressive, but really the program is just doing its job on an input. The input just happens to be itself.

119212001 11y ago

I don't want to be part of that "future". PyPy is good but "closed": It's very hard to tinker due to excessive compile times and unreachability of the C level (no, cffi is no substitute). If you just use Python as a managed language, fine, but the magic is gone. I'd probably use Java if I wanted a "closed" language.