25 ms·

Guido van Rossum aiming to make CPython 2x faster in 3.11

27 points by angrygoat 5y ago

oped 5y ago
"This is Microsoft's way of giving back to Python". Interesting that he only contributes for money, while so many developers have worked for free. He could have executed his project without being employed. The sellout of Python to $BIGCORP continues.
- advisedwang 5y ago
  Microsoft is also hiring Eric Snow and Mark Shannon, so even if GvR could have worked on this himself, him moving may have enabled two more people.
- farisjarrah 5y ago
  Python is free and open source software. Binaries are readily available, and you can easily fork and build python from scratch if you so desire. They encourage and accept contributions from the general public, and they are even so nice that they supported a legacy version of the language for an additional 10 years after the planned switch to python 3. Guido invented this software, gave it away for free, and got scores upon scores of volunteers to pitch in on the project. Guido then quit the project and decided he could go make a bunch of money working for microsoft. No one forced him to work on python for microsoft, he decided he wanted to do it and Microsoft was generous enough to support him. I see nothing wrong with any of this. There are plenty of complaints to make about Microsoft and Python but this "python selling out to $BIGCORP" thing simply doesn't make sense. If Guido wanted to sell out python, why didn't he remain BDFL and cede control of the project to Microsoft? I think that this sort of discourse is unhelpful, off topic, and turns off people from open source. If companies are willing to support engineers working on free software we should support them and shouldn't guilt them about it, because its easier and cheaper for them to simply release proprietary software.
- qeternity 5y ago
  Please point me in the direction of the massively successful, globally deployed FOSS language that you’ve developed on your spare time without compensation. Can’t wait to use it.
  - rurban 5y ago
    Luajit comes to my mind. Just bad that the lua folks dissed it.
advisedwang 5y ago
It seems a shame that this explicitly excludes helping multi-threaded workloads (per the slides). That seems like CPython's biggest weakness. Is there some other work that will be solving that?
- simcop2387 5y ago
  It's definitely being worked on, but it's a lot harder than there's other fixes because it's things like the gil that are preventing races and things that are in the way. You end up needing to find more fine grained locks for things and break apis to get it all worked out. I have no doubt that it'll happen, but who knows how much work it'll take

27 points by angrygoat 5y ago

oped 5y ago

"This is Microsoft's way of giving back to Python". Interesting that he only contributes for money, while so many developers have worked for free. He could have executed his project without being employed. The sellout of Python to $BIGCORP continues.

advisedwang 5y ago
Microsoft is also hiring Eric Snow and Mark Shannon, so even if GvR could have worked on this himself, him moving may have enabled two more people.
farisjarrah 5y ago
Python is free and open source software. Binaries are readily available, and you can easily fork and build python from scratch if you so desire. They encourage and accept contributions from the general public, and they are even so nice that they supported a legacy version of the language for an additional 10 years after the planned switch to python 3. Guido invented this software, gave it away for free, and got scores upon scores of volunteers to pitch in on the project. Guido then quit the project and decided he could go make a bunch of money working for microsoft. No one forced him to work on python for microsoft, he decided he wanted to do it and Microsoft was generous enough to support him. I see nothing wrong with any of this. There are plenty of complaints to make about Microsoft and Python but this "python selling out to $BIGCORP" thing simply doesn't make sense. If Guido wanted to sell out python, why didn't he remain BDFL and cede control of the project to Microsoft? I think that this sort of discourse is unhelpful, off topic, and turns off people from open source. If companies are willing to support engineers working on free software we should support them and shouldn't guilt them about it, because its easier and cheaper for them to simply release proprietary software.
qeternity 5y ago
Please point me in the direction of the massively successful, globally deployed FOSS language that you’ve developed on your spare time without compensation. Can’t wait to use it.
- rurban 5y ago
  Luajit comes to my mind. Just bad that the lua folks dissed it.

advisedwang 5y ago

It seems a shame that this explicitly excludes helping multi-threaded workloads (per the slides). That seems like CPython's biggest weakness. Is there some other work that will be solving that?

simcop2387 5y ago
It's definitely being worked on, but it's a lot harder than there's other fixes because it's things like the gil that are preventing races and things that are in the way. You end up needing to find more fine grained locks for things and break apis to get it all worked out. I have no doubt that it'll happen, but who knows how much work it'll take