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Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 20:35:03 -0700
Subject: Re: Python Front-end to GCC
From: Mark Janssen <dreamingforward@gmail.com>
To: Philip Herron <herron.philip@googlemail.com>
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> Gccpy is an Ahead of time implementation of Python ontop of GCC. So it
> works as you would expect with a traditional compiler such as GCC to
> compile C code. Or G++ to compile C++ etc.

That is amazing.  I was just talking about how someone should make a
front-end to GCC on this list a couple of months ago.  Awesome!

> Documentation can be found http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/PythonFrontEnd.
> (Although this is sparse partialy on purpose since i do not wan't
> people thinking this is by any means ready to compile real python
> applications)

What's missing?

> I've found some good success with this project in compiling python
> though its largely unknown to the world simply because i am nervous of
> the compiler and more specifically the python compiler world.
>
> But at least to me there is at least to me an un-answered question in
> current compiler implementations.  AOT vs Jit.
>
> Is a jit implementation of a language (not just python) better than
> traditional ahead of time compilation.

Not at all.  The value of jit compilation, I believe, is purely for
the dynamic functionality that it allows.  AOT compilation will never
allow that, but in return you get massive performance and runtime-size
gains (that is, you don't need a massive interpreter environment
anymore!)  If your compiler produces an executable program without the
need for the python interpreter environment:  Two major wins.

> What i can say is ahead of time at least strips out the crap needed
> for the users code to be run. As in people are forgetting the basics
> of how a computer works in my opinion when it comes to making code run
> faster.

Agreed.

> I could go into the arguments but i feel i should let the project
> speak for itself its very immature so you really cant compare it to
> anything like it but it does compile little bits and bobs fairly well
> but there is much more work needed.

I wish I had the resources to try it myself, but would love to see
some performance numbers (say factorizations, or bubble-sorts, etc).
Also runtime executable sizes.


> I would really like to hear the feedback good and bad. I can't
> describe how much work i've put into this and how much persistence
> I've had to have in light of recent reddit threads talking about my
> project.

Please reference threads in question, would like to see the issues raised.
-- 
MarkJ
Tacoma, Washington